MR.   AMBROSE'S    LETTERS 


THE  REBELLION. 


JOHN   P.   KENNEDY. 


NEW    YORK: 

PUBLISHED  BY  HUKD  AND   HOUGHTON. 
BALTIMORE:  JAMES  S.  WATERS. 

1865. 


£4  58 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1865,  by 

IIlTRD   AND   IIOUGHTON, 

iu  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of 
New  York. 


d. 


RIVERSIDE,   CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED  BY  H.  0.  HOUGUTON  AND  COMPANY. 


A  WORD  TO  THE  READER. 


THESE  letters  of  Mr.  Paul  Ambrose  were  writ 
ten  at  intervals,  as  their  dates  will  show,  from  the 
close  of  the  second  year  of  the  Civil  War  down  to 
the  restoration  of  peace  after  the  surrender  of  Lee. 
They  were  addressed  to  the  author's  old  friend,  Mr. 
Seaton,  of  the  "  National  Intelligencer,"  and,  with 
the  exception  of  the  last,  were  published  in  that 
paper.  The  topics  they  bring  into  discussion  are 
those  suggested  by  the  principles  and  incidents  of 
the  rebellion  as  these  rose  to  view  in  the  rapid  tran 
sit  of  events.  In  the  study  of  these  topics  the  reader 
will  not  fail  to  remark  how  gradually  and  sharply 
the  destined  plot  of  this  great  drama  was  developed, 
from  day  to  day,  in  the  progress  of  what  we  might 
call  the  ripening  of  a  wonderful  revolution  in  the 
political  and  social  character  of  the  nation. 

Mr.  Ambrose  has  endeavored  to  explore  the  se 
cret  motives  which  impelled  a  class  of  politicians  in 
the  South,  not  without  some  effective  cooperation 
from  auxiliaries  both  in  the  North  and  West,  to 
contrive  the  overthrow  of  the  Union.  He  has  also 


IV  A    WORD  TO  THE  READER. 

brought  into  review  the  most  popular  and  authori 
tative  assumptions  of  that  political  philosophy  which 
may  be  said  to  be  endemic  in  the  South,  and  which 
has  had  such  signal  influence  in  swaying  the  mind 
of  that  region  towards  the  unconscious  but  certain 
establishment  of  perpetual  war  between  the  States ; 
for  nothing  is  more  fixed  in  the  fate  of  nations  than 
the  impossibility  of  peace  under  conflicting  sover 
eignties. 

In  the  four  years  of  desperate  struggle  that 
have  gone  by,  the  whole  country  has  remarked 
how  strangely  each  stroke  of  war  smote  the  mind 
of  the  people  with  a  new  conception  of  the  issue  to 
which  they  were  giving  their  strength.  Each  year 
brought  a  new  phase  to  the  conflict,  every  month 
unexpected  change  in  its  direction,  new  interpreta 
tion  of  its  mysteries,  stronger  conviction  of  the  power 
that  shaped  its  course. 

Now  that  the  strife  has  come  to  an  end,  and  we 
can  look  calmly  over  the  wreck  of  the  war  and  see 
how  much  the  tempest  of  its  wrath  has  destroyed, 
and  how  much  it  has  regenerated  and  reformed,  we 
are  struck  with  amazement  at  the  magnitude  of  the 
achievement :  we  acknowledge  it  to  be  far  above  all 
human  premeditation ;  far  beyond  the  reach  of  un 
assisted  human  agencies.  We  see  in  this  consum 
mation,  the  mysterious  grandeur  of  an  old  Scriptural 
Prophecy  or  Proclamation  of  a  Divine  command ; 
and  we  contemplate  the  end  at  which  we  have 


A    WORD  TO  THE  READER.  V 

arrived  with  the  awe  and  reverence  due  to  the 
greatest  and  most  memorable  era,  except  one,  that 
finds  a  record  in  human  annals,  —  the  Era  of  the 
Emancipation  of  four  millions  of  Slaves,  and  the 
Extirpation  of  African  slavery  forever.  The  Curse 
of  Ages  has  been  lifted  from  two  continents.  Slav 
ery  has  disappeared  everywhere  within  our  borders, 
and  begins  to-day  to  perish  in  Africa,  to  wither  in 
Brazil,  and  all  South  America.  The  war  has  struck 
the  blow  that  makes  it  henceforth  incapable  of  life, 
beyond  the  present  century,  in  any  part  of  the 
world. 

Everything  that  may  serve  to  note  the  history  of 
such  an  era,  has  a  value  that  makes  it  worth  pres 
ervation.  It  is  chiefly  on  this  score,  that  Mr.  Am 
brose  has  authorized  the  collection  of  these  Letters 
in  the  present  volume.  But  what  had  more  force 
in  bringing  him  to  this  conclusion,  was  the  persua 
sion  which  led  him  to  believe  that,  being  written 
in  the  kindest  spirit  of  old  friendship,  and,  in  great 
part,  with  a  special  view  to  the  restoration  of  good 
will  South  of  the  line,  they  might  do  some  service, 
if  brought  to  the  perusal  of  certain  of  our  "  Southern 
brethren"  who  have  unwittingly,  against  all  their 
antecedents,  got  strangely  out  of  place  in  this  quar 
rel.  And  it  was  added  to  this  suggestion,  that  other 
of  these  brethren,  of  a  more  inveterate  stamp,  might, 
perhaps,  experience  a  wholesome  influence  in  turn 
ing  over  these  pages,  —  if  it  were  only  for  the  oppor- 


vi  A    WORD  TO  THE  READER. 

tunity  it  would  furnish  them  for  a  review  of  their 
old  teachings  and  traditional  conceits  touching  gov 
ernment,  which  they  had  learned  from  the  schools, 
and  which  had  apparently  so  much  to  do  in  getting 
up  this  singularly  miscalculated  rebellion  of  theirs. 

Now,  to  both  of  these  classes  of  thinkers,  these 
Letters — should  they  fail  to  convince  those  to  whom 
they  are  tendered  that  they  have  fallen  into  error 
*n  regard  to  certain  favorite  dogmas — will,  at  least, 
offer  a  modest  plea  for  the  reconsideration  of  opin 
ions  which  are  now  popularly  claimed  to  be  settled 
by  the  war,  but  which,  I  think,  judicious  persons 
would  say,  had  much  better  be  settled,  if  that  be 
practicable,  by  argument  and  honest  conviction.  To 
bring  this  about  would  certainly  be  a  point  gained 
of  inestimable  value  to  the  future  peace  and  cordial 
intent  of  the  country.  Mere  conquest  is  but  a  hol 
low  peacemaker :  it  leaves  the  bitter  root  still  in 
the  ground.  To  pluck  that  out  by  the  force  of  a 
true  and  manly  judgment,  instead  of  leaving  it  to 
die  under  the  slow  decay  of  time,  will  go  far  to  turn 
our  calamity  into  a  blessing. 

We  have  many  points  yet  to  settle,  which  will 
require  all  the  wisdom  and  all  the  good  temper  on 
both  sides,  which  the  war  has  left  us.  In  these  pend 
ing  and  coming  questions  the  South  has  a  much 
nearer  and  more  sensitive  interest  than  the  North. 
Let  me  give  the  men  of  that  section  a  word  of  kind 
advice,  in  exhorting  them  to  face  their  fortunes  with 


A    WORD  TO  THE  READER.  vii 

an  equal  mind,  to  anticipate  the  predestined  course 
of  events,  and  to  outrun  the  hopes  of  the  country 
by  ready  and  cheerful  provision  for  the  inevitable 
future.  They  have  come  to  the  threshold  of  a  new 
nationality :  let  them  cross  it  like  a  wise  generation, 
with  a  brave  confiding  step,  and  they  will  live  to 
rejoice  in  a  new  prosperity,  more  permanent  and 
happier  than  the  old. 

JOHN  P.  KENNEDY. 

BALTIMORE,  August  I,  1865, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

LETTER  I. 

JANUARY,  1863. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  SEATON  :  —  This  year,  eigh 
teen  hundred  and  sixty-three,  marks  our  en 
trance  upon  the  third  annual  period  of  the  civil 
war.  The  quarrel  still  rages  with  unabated 
fury.  Indeed,  as  it  grows  older,  it  seems  to 
become  instinct  with  fiercer  hatreds  and  to 
gather  new  vigor  of  resistance  from  its  desper 
ation.  Is  it  not  strange  that  such  "  a  zeal  to 
destroy  "  should  so  fire  the  heart  of  American 

citizens  against  the  life  of  a  nation  whose  birth 
& 

and  career  have  been  the  theme  of  more  in 
cessant,  boastful,  and  extravagant  panegyric 
than  the  affection  of  any  people  ever  before 
heaped  upon  their  country  ?  Posterity  will 
read  the  history  of  this  commotion  with  an 
interest  full  of  amazement  at  the  intensity  of 
the  passion  it  has  stirred  in  the  hearts  of  its 


a  3/72.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

authors,  and  the  utter  insignificance  of  the 
provocation  upon  which  it  arose.  They  will 
distrust  with  natural  wonder  the  narrative 
which  informs  them  that  large  communities  of 
intelligent  people,  as  happy  in  their  homes  as 
a  propitious  Heaven  and  a  beneficent  Govern 
ment  could  make  them,  peaceful  and  prosper 
ous  in  the  enjoyment  of  every  blessing  coveted 
by  man,  fondly  addicted  to  self-gratulation  for 
their  well-earned  eminence  amongst  nations, 
envied  by  the  whole  world  for  their  freedom, 
conscious  only  of  Government  by  its  ever-pres 
ent  bounty  ;  that  they  should  turn  upon  the 
work  of  their  own  hands,  and  in  a  year  of  sin 
gular  cheerfulness  —  a  year  of  ovations,  festiv 
ities,  and  pageants  —  should,  all  at  once,  con 
vert  their  own  Paradise  into  a  Pandemonium, 
and  fall  to  rending  the  magnificent  structure 
of  their  liberties  into  fragments ;  that  they 
should  pursue  this  awful  labor  of  demolition 
through  two  long  years  of  such  carnage  and 
desolation  as  the  world  never  saw  before,  and 
should,  with  still  more  bitter  hate  and  eager 
ferocity,  enter  upon  a  third  :  that  a  thinking, 
shrewd,  kind-hearted,  Christian  people  should 
do  this,  writh  unremitting  effort  to  render  the 
obloquy  and  disgrace  of  the  American  name 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  3 

immortal !  How  shall  after-ages  study  this  ter 
rible  anomaly  without  a  charitable  doubt  of  its 
truth  ? 

I  know  how  painfully  you  meditate  over  this 
crisis,  and  I  cannot  but  believe  —  rmy,  I  am 
sure  —  that  many  of  our  old  friends  on  the 
other  side  of  the  line  are  in  full  sympathy  with 
us  in  deploring  the  madness  that  has  brought 
our  country  into  this  unhappy  distraction.  If 
we  could  but  reach  them  with  an  invocation 
to  a  calm  review  of  those  elements  of  discord 
which  now  separate  us,  I  should  be  full  of 
hope  that  the  same  wise  spirit  of  counsel  which 
won  our  confidence  and  love  in  past  time, 
would  bring  us,  as  of  old,  into  full  accord,  and 
that  the  kindly  and  powerful  influence  they 
were  wont  to  exercise  over  the  brotherhood,  of 
which  they  and  we  were  equally  proud  as  citi 
zens  of  our  broad  Republic,  would  be  exerted 
within  their  own  sphere,  to  stay  the  further 
rage  of  this  tempest  and  open  the  path  to  that 
harmony  and  union  which  have  been  so  cause 
lessly  disturbed. 

With  this  intent  and  the  indulgence  of  this 
hope,  I  address  these  letters  to  you,  purposing, 
if  haply  the  chances  of  the  war  should  allow 
them  to  cross  the  line,  to  send  them  forth  with 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

a  message  of  kind  remembrance  to  old  and 
cherished  friends  there,  who  I  would  fain  be 
lieve  have  preserved  their  integrity  and  their 
reason  unclouded  by  the  passions  which  have 
hurried  the  multitudes  around  them  into  the 
dreadful  vortex  of  the  rebellion. 

Your  friend,  PAUL   AMBROSE. 

To  WM.  W.  SEATON,  ESQUIRE, 

Washington. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 


LETTER  II. 

SUDDEN"  CONVERSIONS. 

JANUARY,  1863. 

WHEN  a  votary  desires  to  make  a  sacrifice, 
he  will  find  sticks  enough  under  every  hedge 
to  kindle  the  fire.  There  is  a  Latin  proverb 
to  the  same  purport  —  "  Qui  vult  ccedere  canem 
facile  invenit  fustem."  My  interpretation  of 
this  bit  of  experience  is,  that  whenever  we  set 
our  hearts  upon  a  forbidden  enterprise,  an  easy 
virtue  will  encounter  no  difficulty  in  the  search 
for  the  means  to  get  it  on  foot.  Or,  let  me 
put  it  in  another  shape  more  germane  to  my 
present  subject :  Whenever  it  is  necessary  to 
support  a  bad  or  doubtful  cause  by  an  argu 
ment,  he  is  but  a  sorry  casuist  who  will  have 
to  go  far  to  find  one. 

I  am  every  day  struck  by  the  proof  which 
the  rebellion  affords  to  the  accuracy  of  this  in 
sight  into  the  nature  of  the  ordinary  conscience 
of  mankind.  It  is  curious  to  note  the  facility 


6  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

with  which,  at  this  time,  many  of  the  most 
respectable  minds  of  the  country,  even  many 
eminent  in  public  affairs,  have  permitted  them 
selves  to  lapse  into  that  fatal  apostasy  which, 
in  a  moment,  has  cast  aside  the  honorable  con 
servatism  of  their  whole  lives,  and  plunged 
them  into  that  very  maze  of  political  error 
which  they  have  always  taught  themselves 
and  others  to  shun. 

It  is  not  long  ago  when  it  was  almost  the 
universal  conviction  of  our  most  approved 
statesmen,  both  North  and  South,  and  still 
more  that  of  the  great  multitude  who  take 
their  opinions  at  second  hand,  that  the  doc 
trine  of  secession  was  a  shallow  invention  of  a 
few  Quixotes  in  politics.  In  the  days  of  Gen. 
Jackson  it  was  denounced  and  derided  as  the 
blackest  of  treasons  by  the  whole  of  that  im 
perious  party  which,  under  his  lead,  swayed  the 
public  mind  with  absolute  authority.  When 
he  said  "  the  Union  must  be  preserved,"  these 
words  meant  something  more  than  a  policy  of 
conciliation  ;  they  were  uttered  as  an  angry 
threat  against  those  who  meditated  disunion, 
and  intimated  that,  if  necessary,  the  Union 
should  be  preserved  by  the  sword.  The  words 
were  applauded  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thou- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  1 

sands  of  those  who  to-day  are  crying  out  "  this 
Union  shall  be  destroyed."  When  he  said,  in 
strong  and  unequivocal  phrase,  that  secession 
was  treason,  these  same  thousands  reechoed  the 
sentiment  with  such  earnest  repetition  as  to 
plant  it  in  the  very  heart  of  the  country  as  an 
article  of  faith.  The  intuition  of  the  masses 
in  this  conviction  was  sustained  by  the  better 
informed  judgment  of  the  most  eminent  ex 
pounders  of  the  Constitution,  by  the  Courts, 
by  Congress,  and  by  the  Cabinet,  at  that  time 
illustrious  for  the  great  ability  and  experience 
of  its  members.  It  was  not  less  sustained  by 
the  quiet  support  of  nine-tenths  of  the  educated 
men  in  every  State,  who,  taking  no  share  in  the 
popular  demonstrations  of  political  action,  gave 
their  own  healthful  tone  of  thought  to  the  social 
circles  of  their  respective  neighborhoods. 

There  were  notable  exceptions,  it  is  true,  to 
this  common  consent  of  opinion ;  many  in  South 
Carolina,  where  a  threatened  revolt  had  been 
staked  upon  the  issue  ;  some  in  other  States, 
and  more  particularly  in  Eastern  Virginia, 
where  a  peculiar  system  of  traditionary  dia 
lectics  had  bred  a  class  of  hair-splitting  doc 
trinaires,  not  less  remarkable  for  the  eccen 
tricity  of  their  dogmas  than  for  the  acuteness 


8  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

with  which  they  maintained  them.  The  phi 
losophers  of  the  Resolutions  of  '98  were  few 
enough  and  grotesque  enough,  in  the  ordinary 
estimation  of  the  country,  to  provoke  a  good- 
natured  laugh  at  the  perseverance  with  which 
they  muddled  their  brains  in  the  mystification 
of  a  problem  that,  in  the  common  computation, 
had  about  as  much  practical  value  as  that  more 
celebrated  scheme  of  Laputa,  the  extracting  of 
sunbeams  from  cucumbers.  But  even  the  Res- 
olutionists,  for  the  most  part,  stood  by  Jackson, 
and  turned  their  back  upon  the  doctrine  of 
secession. 

Indeed,  it  may  be  affirmed,  as  an  historical 
fact,  that  the  whole  South  has,  in  different 
stages  of  our  national  career,  at  one  time  or 
another,  repudiated  this  doctrine. 

The  present  generation  is  but  little  aware, 
and  many  of  the  last  generation  of  Southern 
statesmen  now  alive  choose  to  forget,  that  there 
once  was  an  occasion  which  called  forth  a  great 
deal  of  notice  of  this  pretension  of  the  right 
of  a  State  to  secede  from  the  Union,  and  that 
the  prevailing  sentiment  of  the  South  then 
branded  it  as  a  foul  treason. 

The  Hartford  Convention,  after  much  pre 
liminary  announcement  in  the  Legislatures  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  9 

New-England  States,  met  in  December  1814, 
to  devise  plans  for  the  security  and  defence  of 
those  States  in  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  and 
to  adopt   such   measures  of  self-protection   as 
were  "  not  repugnant  to  their  Federal  obliga 
tions  as  members  of  the  Union."     A  different 
purpose  was  suspected  by  their  political  ene 
mies  ;  and,  whether  justly  or  not,  the  popular 
belief  of  the   South  was,  that,  notwithstand 
ing   the  restriction  they  had  set   upon   their 
action,  it  was  their  design,  in  certain  contin 
gencies,  to  recommend  the  retirement  of  their 
States  from  the  Union.     The  members  of  that 
Convention  have  vehemently  denied  this  charge, 
but,  so  far  as  the  South  was  concerned,  utterly 
without  effect.     Every  man,  woman,  and  child 
of  the  South  who  was  capable  of  receiving  an 
impression  from  the  topics  of  the  day,  heard 
the  subject  alluded  to  in  conversation,  or  read 
of  it  in  the  papers,  only  as  a  scheme  to  dissolve 
the  Union  —  a  project  of  secession.     It    was 
at  that  time  the  word  "  secession  "  itself  first 
became  familiar  as  a  term  of  our  political  vocab 
ulary.     Before  that  date  Mr.  Jefferson  called 
it  "  scission  ; "  and,  by  the  by,  pronounced  it 
to    be    incompatible    with    any   government. 
Whether,  therefore,  the  Hartford  Convention 


10  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

was  slandered  or  not  —  as  I  believe  it  was  — 
by  this  imputation,  the  general  impression  of 
its  truth  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line, 
brought  up  the  opportunity  for  the  expression 
of  Southern  opinion  on  the  question  of  seces 
sion.  Now,  I  am  sure  I  am  correct  when  I  say 
that  the  imputed  purpose  of  the  Convention 
was  denounced  from  one  end  of  the  Southern 
States  to  the  other,  with  peculiar  bitterness,  as 
a  purpose  to  commit  a  monstrous  treason.  They 
who  remember  the  events  of  that  day  know 
that  every  leading  man  in  those  States,  who 
made  this  supposed  design  of  secession  a  theme 
for  a  speech  from  any  forum  ;  that  the  general 
current  of  popular  opinion  in  educated  society; 
the  voice  of  the  multitude  which  repeats  the 
passwords  of  the  day  ;  and  the  whole  flow  of 
editorial  comment  in  the  most  authentic  presses, 
—  all  united  in  a  common  note  of  censure  upon 
it  as  treason. 

More  recently,  in  1850  and  1851,  when 
South  Carolina,  in  her  vigilant  outlook  for  an 
opportunity  to  strike  another  blo\v  at  the  Union, 
thought  she  had  found  it  in  the  admission  of 
California,  and  had  summoned  the  malcontents 
of  the  South  to  a  new  attempt  at  secession, 
every  one  remembers,  how  her  favorite  scheme 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  11 

of  crushing  out  our  nationality  failed  for  want 
of  cooperation  from  her  sister  States.  The 
manly  opposition  of  a  loyal  minority  within  her 
own  borders,  and,  still  more,  the  calm  good 
sense  of  those  to  whom  she  appealed  outside  of 
her  borders,  defeated  her  charitable  design. 
The  people  of  Mississippi  met  in  Convention 
and  adjourned  their  deliberations  with  a  sober 
resolution  against  the  doctrine  of  a  right  of 
secession.  Georgia  discussed  it,  through  the 
press  and  on  the  hustings,  by  her  ablest  ex 
ponents  of  constitutional  law,  and  set  her  seal 
of  condemnation  upon  it.  It  found  no  strength 
with  which  it  was  able  to  shake  the  faith  of  the 
people  in  their  conviction  of  the  right  to  be 
regarded  as  a  nation.  In  that  defeat  there  was 
nothing  more  to  be  admired  than  the  instinc 
tive  recoil  of  the  masses  from  the  insidious 
teachings  of  ambitious  politicians  who  sought 
to  seduce  them  into  this  treason  against  the 
Government ;  nothing  more  significant  of  the 
com.mon  perception  of  the  danger  and  disgrace 
of  this  principal  of  disunion  than  the  dexterity 
with  which  some  of  the  present  oracles  of  seces 
sion  then  shirked  the  responsibility  of  appear 
ing  as  its  advocates. 

In  the  Border  States  it  had,  at  that  date,  no 


12  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

foothold  amongst  men  of  any  repute  in  society, 
except  perhaps  in  the  rare  and  scattered  in 
stances  of  a  few  super-subtle  extremists  on  the 
theory  of  State  rights.  Even  with  them  it 
was  rather  a  speculation  than  a  practical  prin 
ciple.  Maryland  might  have  had  a  handful 
of  such  men,  but  nobody  heard  of  them.  Ken 
tucky  and  Missouri  could  boast  of  as  few.  Vir 
ginia,  notwithstanding  her  passion  for  political 
metaphysics,  though  a  little  more  demonstra 
tive  than  the  others,  gave  no  further  counte 
nance  to  this  heresy  than  the  grandiloquence 
of  a  few  of  her  country  squires  shed  upon  it 
when  indulging  their  endemic  proclivity  to 
wards  the  oracular  at  the  monthly  meetings  of 
the  county  courts  —  the  Solons  of  a  greatState, 
which  they  had  seen,  within  their  own  days, 
dwindling  down  from  a  star  of  the  first  to  one 
of  a  fifth  magnitude  in  the  firmament  of  the 
Union  —  a  very  natural  experience  to  breed 
thoughts  of  discontent  and  separation. 

In  all  this  long  period,  from  the  date  of  the 
Constitution  until  that  of  the  inauguration  of 
this  civil  war,  during  which  the  fundamental 
ideas  of  our  Government  were  acquiring  solid 
ity  through  that  process  of  induration  by  which 
forms  of  polity  become  permanently  established 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  13 

in  the  traditional  respect  of  the  people,  the  na 
tionality  of  the  Union  was  every  day  growing 
to  be  a  more  universally  accepted  fact.  With 
the  exception  of  a  few  sporadic  instances  of 
dissent,  the  mind  of  the  country  was  settling 
down  upon  the  conviction  that  the  integrity  of 
the  Union  was  secured  by  the  organic  law,  and 
could  not  lawfully  be  broken  by  any  course  of 
proceeding  known  to  the  Constitution  or  im 
plied  from  the  conditions  under  which  it  came 
into  existence  ;  in  short,  that  nothing  but  rebel 
lion  and  successful  revolution  could  overthrow 
it.  This  conviction  grew  up  in  a  state  of  peace 
which  afforded  leisure  for  calm  and  studious 
deliberation  ;  a  state  of  peace  attended  with 
such  occasional  perturbations  as  served  to  bring 
the  question  into  prominent  notice,  and  to  invite 
a  careful  consideration  of  its  terms  and  inci 
dents,  and  yet  free  from  that  passion  which  is 
apt  to  cloud  the  judgment  of  the  country.  No 
national  problem  could  be  settled  in  circum 
stances  more  propitious  to  its  true  solution. 

How  does  it  happen,  after  such  an  experience 
with  such  a  result,  that,  all  at  once,  the  year 
1861  should  find  the  question  not  only  thrown 
into  the  wind,  but  the  almost  universal  judg 
ment  of  the  country  absolutely  reversed, 


14  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

throughout  a  whole  section  of  the  South,  em 
bracing  some  eight  or  nine  States  and  some 
four  or  five  millions  of  citizens  ? 

It  would  be  very  absurd  to  say  that  this 
change  sprang  out  of  a  more  thorough  study 
of  the  history  of  the  Government  or  a  deeper 
insight  into  the  philosophy  of  the  Constitution. 
The  year  1861  brought  a  tornado  of  violent  ex 
citements  ;  men  do  not  think  with  more  care 
ful  deliberation  in  such  a  storm.  It  brought 
fierce  ambitions  into  play,  conspiracies,  the 
clash  of  arms,  the  frenzy  of  party  rage  ;  these 
are  not  the  companions  of  patient  research  or 
wise  conclusions.  In  point  of  capacity  the  men 
of  1861  were  not  the  superiors —  I  hope  their 
amour  propre  will  not  be  offended  by  my  bold 
ness  —  of  Marshall  or  Story,  of  Madison  or 
Hamilton,  of  Webster  or  Clay,  of  Spencer 
Roane  or  Lowndes,  of  Livingston  or  Jefferson, 
or  even  of  Washington.  How  many  more 
might  I  mention  ?  Neither  were  these  same 
men  of  1861  wiser  or  more  enlightened  than 
they  themselves  were  in  1851,  when  many  of 
them  took  pains  to  teach  their  compatriots  the 
fallacy  as  well  as  the  danger  of  secession. 

It  is  unpleasant  to  come  to  this  conclusion, 
but  thers  is  no  other  left  to  us.  We  must  look 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  15 

for  this  sudden  abjuration  of  our  ancient  faith 
to  causes  which  spring  from  less  noble  motives 
than  conviction,  and  belong  to  a  lower  range 
of  human  action  than  that  of  honest  judgment. 
We  must  submit  to  be  disenchanted  of  the 
illusion  that  the  many  excellent  men  we  were 
accustomed  to  admire,  and  among  them  so 
many  of  our  cherished  friends,  were  too  staunch 
in  their  truth,  and  too  courageous  in  their  vir 
tue,  to  be  shaken  by  any  popular  tempest.  Let 
us  confess  with  sorrow  that  many  —  far  too 
many  to  be  thought  of  without  a  sigh  for  our 
country  —  had  not  the  stamina  for  a  time  like 
this,  and  that  they  have  either  yielded  to  the 
spell  of  a  popular  excitement  they  had  not  the 
equanimity  to  withstand,  or  to  the  tyranny  of  a 
dictation  they  had  not  the  manhood  to  brave. 
To  one  or  the  other  of  these  influences  they 
have  surrendered  the  pride  of  their  own  intel 
lectual  eminence,  their  consistency,  and  their 
independence. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  appearances  to  the  con 
trary  and  the  fact  that  many,  from  whom  we 
hoped  better  things,  had  fallen  off,  I  still  believe 
that  there  is  a  host  of  true  and  patriotic  men 
scattered  through  every  State  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  who  but  bide  their  time  to  speak 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

a  potent  word  in  support  of  that  blessed  old 
Union  which  the  madness  of  our  day  has 
brought  into  jeopardy.  I  think  you  and  I  could 
name  some  of  our  old  comrades,  who  will  yet 
be  heard  sounding  that  clarion  note  of  loyalty 
which  the  country  has  often  heard  in  past  time, 
when  these  very  dangers  now  upon  us  were 
only  looming  in  the  distance.  They  are  quiet 
now ;  many  of  them  in  voluntary  exile,  even 
in  the  bosom  of  the  communities  in  which  they 
dwell ;  silent  and  sorrowful,  no  doubt,  and 
longing  for  the  day  when  they  may  come  for 
ward  to  speak  of  peace.  I  would  fain  believe 
that  many  good  men  of  this  cast  are  held  in 
reserve  by  Providence  for  that  special  service. 
They  wait  for  the  subsiding  of  the  waters, 
when  it  may  be  safe  to  venture  forth  in  quest 
of  the  olive-branch.  With  what  full  hearts 
and  overflowing  eyes  will  they  be  welcomed  to 
our  bosoms,  if  they  bring  us  that  sacred  sym 
bol  !  Let  us  wait  and  hope. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  IT 


LETTER  III. 

SECESSION. 

FEBRUARY,  1863. 

IT  has  been  often  said  that  the  idea  of  re- 
strictino-  Government  to  a  written  constitution 

£•} 

is  a  fallacy ;  that  such  a  constitution  is  inevi 
tably  incapable  of  providing  for  the  emergen 
cies  of  national  progress.  The  real  constitu 
tion  of  a  nation  lies  deeper  than  its  visible 
ordinances,  —  in  the  character,  habits,  and  cus 
toms  of  the  people,  which  do  not  admit  of  a 
complete  expression  by  instrument  of  writing. 
The  written  fundamental  law  provides  only  for 
what  is  foreseen,  and  is,  therefore,  but  imper 
fect  wisdom.  What  is  not  foreseen  lies  in  the 
breast  of  the  nation,  to  be  taken  care  of,  when 
it  comes  into  view,  by  such  mode  of  disposal  as 
the  case  may  require ;  either  by  process  ap 
pointed  for  amendment,  which  is  always  slow 
and  uncertain  ;  or  by  gradual  and  imperceptible 
adoption,  which  is  only  the  work  of  years ;  or 
by  quick  resort  to  such  power  as  is  at  hand  to 


18  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

meet  an  exigency  which  the  nation  recognizes 
as  a  necessity  too  urgent  for  delay.  In  one  or 
the  other  of  these  modes  a  nation  organizes 
itself  and  conforms  its  institutions  to  its  needs. 
It  crystallizes  in  the  forms  appropriate  to  its 
special  quality.  Thus  all  orderly  government 
is  manifested  as  a  growth,  and  not  merely  as  a 
formula. 

We  have  something  of  a  verification  of  this 
opinion  in  the  changes  which  have  already 
crept  into  our  Constitution  by  the  side-paths  of 
usage,  and  in  the  constant  tendency  towards 
change  which,  if  not  accomplished,  has  yet 
given  birth  to  many  party  contests  to  procure 
it.  The  practical  alteration  of  the  mode  of 
electing  the  President  is  one  example ;  the 
acquisition  of  territory,  as  in  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana,  is  another  ;  the  recent  enactment  of 
legal  tender  and  the  suspension  of  habeas  cor 
pus  are  initiatory  movements  in  the  same  direc 
tion,  and  may  be  regarded  as  a  primary  utter 
ance  of  a  necessity  which  in  time  may  grow 
into  established  law.  We  may  readily  enumer 
ate  cases  in  which  the  Constitution  —  though 

O 

now  but  seventy-four  years  okl  —  has  been 
modified,  or  at  least  settled  by  construction  ; 
and  it  is  somewhat  noticeable  that  in  most  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  19 

these  expansions,  if  not  invasions,  of  the  letter, 
the  strict  constructionists  have  led  the  way. 
You  and  I  can  remember  when  the  party  now 
most  active  in  urging  the  Government  to  make 
a  railroad  to  California,  was  uncompromising 
in  its  denial  of  power  to  construct  the  Cumber 
land  turnpike.  Some  of  them  were  so  con 
scientious  as  to  refuse  a  vote  for  paving  the 
Pennsylvania  Avenue. 

These  scruples  are  obsolete  now  ;  not  be 
cause  the  written  law  is  changed,  nor  that  it 
is  discovered  to  admit  of  a  new  meaning,  but 
simply  because  it  does  not  meet  the  exigencies 
of  national  growth.  A  change  in  the  organic 
law  has  been  effected  by  construction  —  that  is 
to  say,  by  adding  something  to  the  Constitu 
tion,  or  taking  something  away  from  it,  or 
otherwise  interpreting  its  meaning. 

I  cannot  find  fault  with  this  gradual  adapta 
tion  of  the  fundamental  law  to  the  wants  of  the 
nation.  In  general,  it  is  a  healthful  mode  of 
change,  and  is  ordinarily  the  natural  expres 
sion  of  a  necessity,  —  a  tacit  acknowledgment  of 
the  will  of  the  nation  that  its  institutions  should 
be  moulded  to  the  public  convenience,  —  and 
is  apt  to  be  a  wiser  process  of  amendment  than 
that  prescribed  by  law.  It 'moves  in  the  track 


20  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

of  experience,  and  does  not  go  beyond  its  re 
quirements.  Such  amendments,  indeed,  are 
experiences,  not  experiments.  We  thus  insen 
sibly  get  out  of  the  trammels  of  a  written  con 
stitution,  by  building  upon  it,  through  a  series 
of  accretions,  a  traditional  constitution  which, 
in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries,  will  ripen  into 
a  solid  organism  exactly  suited  to  the  needs  and 
instincts  of  the  people. 

The  final  good,  however,  is  not  attained  with 
out  many  alternations  between  failure  and  suc 
cess,  —  the  vibrations  of  the  needle  before  it 
settles  upon  its  true  point.  It  is  only  reached 
through  occasional  struggles,  turbulent  conflicts 
sometimes,  and  sometimes  great  convulsions. 
The  ordinary  process  of  national  development 
is,  in  the  main,  peaceable.  A  century  of  prog 
ress  may  go  on  without  a  war,  but  epochs 
emerge  sooner  or  later  when  disputed  demands 
come  into  the  arena  of  debate  and  opposing 
ideas  assert  themselves  in  arms.  No  nation  has 
ever  reached  its  highest  term  of  manifestation 
without  a  resort  to  the  fierce  arbitrament  of  the 
sword  and  many  a  field  of  blood. 

This  seems  to  be  the  normal  law  of  human 
society,  by  which  it  is  ordained  that  Govern 
ments  shall  arrive  at  their  greatest  capability 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  21 

through  a  career  of  strife  and  suffering.  The 
sinews  of  nations  are  strengthened  by  conflict, 
and  their  virtues  nourished  by  the  discipline  of 
pain  and  sorrow.  We  are  at  this  day  passing 
through  one  of  these  dreadful  probations. 

I  think  any  man  trained  in  the  study  of  his 
tory  might  have  predicted  that  at  whatever 
period  in  our  national  career  the  doctrine  of  a 
constitutional  right  on  the  part  of  a  State  peace 
ably  and  at  its  own  pleasure,  to  secede  from  the 
compact  of  the  Union,  was  seriously  asserted 
and  attempted  to  be  exercised  by  a  party  in 
the  country  or  by  one  or  more  States,  such  an 
attempt  would  necessarily  produce  a  conflict  of 
arms.  Whatever  might  be  the  question  upon 
which  the  claimant  should  choose  to  institute 
this  proceeding, — whether  on  commercial  tariffs, 
on  slavery,  on  domestic  or  foreign  policy,  or  any 
mere  project  of  ambition,  it  matters  not  what, 
—  the  enterprise  would  invoke  the  determined 
resistance  of  every  man  who  cherished  a  re 
gard  for  the  nationality  of  the  Union  ;  and,  if  it 
could  not  be  defeated  by  argument  and  persua 
sion,  it  would  drive  the  parties  into  the  colli 
sion  of  battle.  If  the  advocates  of  the  principle 
should  succeed  in  that  battle  the  old  govern 
ment  would  disappear,  an  entire  new  order  of 


22  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

thing's  would  arise,  and  history  would  be  fur 
nished  with  one  more  example  of  disrupted 
empire  and  fragment  communities  settling  into 
new  forms  or  warring  through  ages  of  change 
ful  disorder.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  should 
be  overthrown,  the  Constitution  would  come 
forth  purified  and  renovated  by  the  ordeal,  and 
would  strike  with  deeper  root  into  the  soil  of 
the  national  faith  and  take  a  more  sturdy 
growth  in  the  attachment  of  the  people.  I 
think  these  might  have  been  the  predictions  of 
any  learned  student  of  the  prevailing  senti 
ment  of  the  American  people,  without  waiting 
for  the  insight  afforded  him  by  the  sad  realities 
of  the  present  day. 

For  myself,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  I 
think  this  doctrine  of  a  right  of  secession  so 
intrinsically  mischievous,  so  incompatible  with 
any  national  progress,  and  so  destructive  of  all 
rational  hope  of  peace  or  happiness,  that  if  it 
really  had  any  place  in  our  system,  it  should  be 
the  first  duty  of  this  generation  to  get  rid  of  it 
at  any  cost ;  that,  in  this  earnest  effort  of  com 
bined  States  to  plant  it  amongst  the  acknowl 
edged  rights  of  the  members  of  the  Union,  it  is 
worth  all  the  sacrifice  of  this  wTar,  however  long 
it  may  be  protracted,  worth  all  tha  tribulation 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  23 

it  has  brought  or  may  bring  us,  to  free  our 
posterity  from  a  heresy  so  full  of  evil  to  us 
and  to  them. 

Notwithstanding  the  vehemence  with  which 

o 

this  right  is  now  asserted,  the  question,  I  am 
happy  to  believe,  is  not  yet  removed  from  the 
domain  of  argument  which  may  be  addressed, 
with  some  hope  of  patient  consideration,  to 
many  honest  minds  in  the  South,  to  whom  the 
disappointments  of  defeat  or,  at  least,  the  delay 
of  success,  may  have  brought  a  calmer  judg 
ment  and  a  more  complacent  temper.  It  is  in 
that  hope  I  expand  the  limits  of  this  letter. 

No  one,  I  believe,  has  ever  claimed  Secession 
to  be  one  of  the  rights  acknowledged  by  the 
Constitution  to  reside  in  the  States.  The  sec 
ond  section  of  the  sixth  article  of  the  Consti 
tution  would  seem  to  infer  exactly  the  reverse. 
Its  advocates  generally  claim  it  as  a  reserved  or, 
more  properly,  an  implied  right,  resulting  from, 
what  they  assert  to  be,  the  original  Sovereignty 
of  the  States.  They  say,  that  the  States,  being 
sovereign  when  they  entered  into  the  Union, 
and  being  the  creators  of  the  Union,  necessarily 
retain  all  their  original  sovereignty  —  which 
they  affirm  to  be  inalienable  by  any  compact  — 
to  be  exercised  whenever  they  tliink  proper : 


24  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

that,  in  fact,  they  are  bound  by  the  laws  of  the 
Union  only  as  long  as  they  choose  to  remain 
in  it.  . 

I  have  two  objections  to  make  to  this  state 
ment.  The  first  relates  to  the  character  and 
nature  of  the  sovereignty  claimed  by  the  States, 
which  I  shall  notice  more  at  large  in  a  future 
letter,  affirming,  for  the  present,  that  the  States 
possess  no  such  sovereignty  as  is  claimed  for 
them.  The  second  objection  I  make  is  —  that, 
supposing  a  State  to  possess  every  attribute  of 
sovereignty  compatible  with  our  system  of  gov 
ernment  and  to  the  fullest  extent  asserted  by 
the  defenders  of  the  doctrine,  it  may,  quite  as 
effectively  as  an  individual  person,  enter  into  a 
social  or  political  compact  and  bind  itself  to  the 
conditions  and  duties  of  that  compact,  even  to 
the  complete  and  perpetual  surrender  of  its  sep 
arate  existence  as  an  independent  corporation. 

This  is  precisely  what  the  original  States  did, 
so  far  as  they  acted,  as  States,  in  forming  the 
Constitution.  But,  combined  with  this  State 
action  in  forming  the  Constitution,  there  was 
another  party  to  the  compact,  more  powerful 
than  the  States  —  the  people  of  all  the  States, 
who  designated  themselves  as  "  the  people  of 
the  United  States  "  —  the  nation  —  who  were 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  25 

the  acknowledged  repositories  of  all  power,  both 
over  the  States  and  over  the  National  Govern 
ment,  and  who,  in  that  name,  declared  the 
supreme  law  by  which  both  the  National  and 
State  Governments  were  to  be  controlled  in  the 
due  administration  of  the  system  they  proposed 
to  the  country.  In  short,  they,  the  people, 
created  the  United  States  and  made  them  em 
phatically  one  nation,  with  -supreme  powers 
within  the  orbit  assigned  to  it. 

The  question  is  simply  .reduced  to  this  :  Do 
the  United  States  constitute  A  NATION,  or  do 
they  represent  an  agglomerate  of  nations,  bound 
together  by  a  temporary  bond  of  a  texture  so 
feeble  that  any  one  may  lawfully  put  an  end  to 
the  combination  whenever  it  may  find  a  motive 
to  do  so  ?  Was  it  the  intention  of  the  States 
and  the  people  really  to  construct  a  temporary 
alliance  of  separate  nations,  dependent  for  its 
duration  upon  a  tenure  so  frail  as  the  possible 
and  probable  discontent  of  a  dominant  party  in 
any  one  of  the  associated  nations  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  will  lead  us 
directly  to  a  consideration  of  what  we  must 
suppose  to  be  the  common-sense  view  which 
the  founders  of  the  Government  took  of  the 
enterprise  they  had  in  hand,  —  I  mean  to  the 


26  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

estimate  they  made,  whilst  they  were  engaged 
in  moulding  the  Constitution,  of  the  object1 
they  intended  to  accomplish.  This  is  an  a  pri 
ori  view  of  their  purpose,  and  avoids  all  debate 
upon  those  subtleties  of  interpretation  which, 
at  a  later  day,  ingenious  logicians  have  invented 
to  prove  a  right  of  secession. 

What  did  the  authors  of  the  Constitution 
intend  to  establish,  when  they  met  together  to 
frame  a  Constitution  for  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  ? 

I  waive  all  reference  to  that  record  of  histor 
ical  facts,  which  is  now  extant,  to  prove  that 
the  controlling  majority  of  the  Convention  dis 
cussed  the  question,  and  maturely  decided  that 
their  purpose  was  to  erect  a  nation  out  of  Con 
federate  States,  which  nation  should  possess 
every  function  of  supremacy  necessary  to  pre 
serve  its  own  existence ;  and  that  to  establish 
and  secure  such  supremacy  the  several  States 
should  surrender,  or,  in  more  appropriate 
phrase,  should  be  denied  every  attribute  of 
sovereignty  that  could  interfere  with  or  impede 
the  free  and  full  exercise  of  the  national  sov 
ereignty  it  was  their  design  to  create,  and 
equally  their  declared  intention  to  render  per 
petual. 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  27 

I  waive  all  reference  to  this  record,  and,  for 
the  present,  look  only  to  what  must  have  been 
the  common-sense  view  which  these  clear 
sighted  men  took  of  the  task  committed  to 
them.  Did  they  deem  it  expedient  or  wise  to 
invest,  either  by  grant  or  implication,  the  States 
then  existing,  or  which  in  future  time  might  be 
organized,  with  what  is  now  claimed  as  the 
right  of  secession  ? 

In  responding  to  this  inquiry  it  is  only  neces 
sary  to  reflect  upon  some  of  the  most  prominent 
and  obvious  consequences  which  follow  the  prac 
tical  application  of  this  right.  We  shall  then  be 
able  to  determine  how  far  these  are  compatible 
with  the  design  of  the  Constitution,  as  this  is 
apparent  in  its  text. 

It  is  not  a  strained  conclusion  to  assume  thaf 
the  architects  of  the  structure  intended  to  make 
a  self-preserving  and  not  a  self-destroying  Un 
ion  ;  that  they  proposed  a  system  which  should 
protect  the  vital  interests  of  the  country,  not 
expose  them  to  unnecessary  peril ;  a  system  that 
would  work  through  coming  ages  and  promote 
the  prosperity  of  many  generations. 

Looking  at  their  projected  labors  in  this  light, 
I  proceed  to  remark  upon  the  incidents  which 
the  most  ordinary  foresight  would  discover  as 


28  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

the  probable  attendants  upon  the  exercise  of  a 
right  of  secession,  and  which  our  late  experi 
ment  of  it  has  brought  into  view  as  actual  im 
pending  dangers. 

1.  The  retirement  of  any  State  from  the 
Union,  even  in  the  mildest  mode  of  such  a 
proceeding,  could  not  but  be  accounted  a  most 
disastrous  calamity,  full  of  peril  not  only  to  the 
domestic  peace  of  the  country,  but  also  to  its 
foreign  relations. 

An  act  of  secession  by  the  smallest  State  in 
the  Union  would  make  that  State,  according 
to  the  theory,  an  independent  government.  In 
that  character  it  would  have  a  right  to  form  alli 
ances  with  foreign  powers,  to  place  itself  under 
their  protection  ;  even  to  unite  itself  as  a  de 
pendency  to  the  most  formidable  enemy  of  the 
States  it  had  left,  and  thus  give  to  such  an 
enemy  a  foothold  on  the  soil,  with  all  the  ad 
vantages  he  could  desire  for  invasion,  —  the 
very  danger  which  it  was  a  prime  object  of  the 
Union  to  avert.  It  would  be  in  the  power  of 
the  least  of  the  States,  in  this  category,  to  dis 
turb  the  regulation  of  the  national  commerce, 
by  the  adoption  of  an  adverse  system  of  trade, 
by  discriminating  duties,  by  restricted  privileges 
of  navigation,  and  other  devices  of  annoyance. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  29 

It  would  furnish  a  refuge  to  fugitives  from 
justice,  and,  what  is  worse  in  the  computation 
of  ills,  according  to  the  ethics  which  have  lately 
grown  almost  into  a  religion  in  some  portions 
of  our  country?  to  fugitives  from  servitude.  It 
is  easy  to  conceive  how  very  inconvenient  such 
a  neighbor  might  become  to  the  general  wel 
fare  of  the  nation  by  a  thousand  forms  of  vex 
ation  open  to  the  practice  of  the  most  inconsid 
erable  State  in  such  a  relation. 

How  much  more  significant  and  aggravated 
would  be  these  irritations  in  the  case  of  the 
secession  of  a  large  central  State  like  that  of 
Pennsylvania  !  Can  we  believe  that  the  fram- 
ers  of  our  National  Government  contemplated 
with  complacency  the  possible  contingency 
of  a  large  and  powerful  Commonwealth,  lying 
in  the  very  bosom  of  the  Union,  erecting  itself 
into  an  independent  government,  and  assuming 
a  character  that  might,  in  any  event,  authorize 
it  to  embarrass  the  communication  between  the 
North  and  South  ;  to  exact  duties  upon  every 
transit  of  merchandise  ;  to  demand  passports 
from  every  traveller,  or  totally  to  interdict  both 
and  compel  the  severed  fragments  of  the  nation 
to  seek  their  intercourse  with  each  other  by  a 
long  detour  around  her  borders  ?  Can  we  per- 


30  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

suade  ourselves  that  the  men  of  1787  had  in 
their  thoughts  the  foundation  of  a  Union  that 
should  be  subject  to  such  contingencies  as 
these  ? 

2.  Secession  not  only  endangers  the  national 
welfare  by  planting  a  foreign  nation  within  the 
circle  of  the  Confederacy,  but  it  absolutely  par 
alyzes  the  Government  by  depriving  it  of  the 
capacity  to  perform  its  most  necessary  func 
tions. 

The  Government  is  authorized  and,  by  its 
needs,-  required  to  contract  debts  and  to  pledge 
the  faith  of  the  whole  nation  for  their  payment: 
Secession  rends  it  asunder,  and  disables  it  from 

performing  this  pkdtfe. 

^-  .•   .-.~  .  .  ^ 

The  Go^rnm^nt  makes  treaties  :  Secession 
repudiates  o'r  impairs  theml  '•  r 

The  Government  builds  forts,  creates  armies 
and  navies,  founds  arsenals,  establishes  mints, 
post-offices,  hospitals  :  Secession  seizes,  appro 
priates,  or  destroys  all  these  within  the  reach 
of  its  arm. 

The  Government  acquires  territory,  holds 
public  lands,  and  erects  States :  Secession  con 
fiscates  these  possessions  and  applies  them  to  its 
own  profit. 

The    history  of   Florida   affords  a   striking 


30  MR.  Al 

suade  ourselves 
their  thoughts  t 
should  be  subj 
these  ? 

2.  Secession  i 
welfare  by  plant 
circle  of  the  Cor 
alyzes  the  Gov< 
capacity  to  per 
tions. 

The  Governr 
needs,-  required 
the  faith  of  the  \ 
Secession  rends 
performing  this 

The  Goy^rnn 
repudiates  o'r  im 

The  Governn 
and  navies,  fou: 
post-offices,  hos} 
priates,  or  desti 
of  its  arm. 

The  Governr 
public  lands,  an< 
fiscates  these  po 
own  profit. 

The    history 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  31 

illustration  on  this  point.  That  territory  was 
originally  purchased  by  the  United  States  at 
the  cost  of  five  millions  of  dollars.  Some  fifty, 
or  perhaps  a  hundred  millions  more  were  ex 
pended  in  its  defence.  It  was  purchased  on 
considerations  purely  national,  as  essential  to 
the  commercial  and  military  advantage  of  the 
country.  It  contains  about  thirty  millions  acres 
of  available  land,  which,  by  the  purchase,  be 
came  a  public  domain.  Emigrants  from  other 
States  went  there  and  were  allowed  to  settle  on 
this  domain  upon  payment  of  a  small  amount 
per  acre  for  the  fee.  In  the  year  1845  there 
had  emigrated  into  this  territory  a  population 
which,  added  to  the  settlers  already  there, 
amounted  to  something  less  than  forty  thousand 
white  persons,  who  had  become  the  owners  of 
perhaps  some  two  or  three  millions  of  acres. 
In  this  year,  1845,  these  persons  very  earnestly 
desired  the  privilege  of  being  erected  into  a 
State,  and  to  that  end  petitioned  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  to  confer  upon  them 
this  greatly  desired  boon.  At  that  date  the 
high  tariff  of  1842  was  in  full  operation ;  the 
question  of  slavery  was  as  rife,  as  active,  and 
as  virulent  in  its  agitation  of  the  country  as  it 
has  ever  been  since ;  in  short,  every  Southern 


32  MR.    AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

grief,  as  interpreted  in  the  inflamed  politics  of 
our  day,  was  as  poignant  at  that  time  as  it  was 
in  1860.  Notwithstanding  these  motives  "  to 
heap  curses  upon  the  Union,"  which  some  of 
the  most  authoritative  teachers  of  Southern 
rights  were  then  urging  upon  their  disciples, 
the  people  of  Florida,  with  their  eyes  open  to 
all  the  "  iniquities "  they  now  impute  to  the 
National  Government,  prayed  for  admission, 
and  they  were  kindly  received  and  welcomed 
as  a  loyal  addition  to  the  fellowship  of  States. 
After  a  brief  existence  of  fifteen  years,  dur- 
ino-  which  the  Government  was  known  to  them 

o 

only  by  the  profusion  of  its  bounties,  upon  some 
pretence  of  convenience  —  for  they  had  none 
of  oppression  —  they  avail  themselves  of  this 
right  of  secession  to  enable  them  to  retire  from 
the  Union.  By  this  act  they  not  only  claim  to 
deprive  the  people  of  the  United  States  of  the 
whole  benefit  of  the  considerations  which  orig 
inally  induced  the  purchase  of  this  territory 
from  Spain,  as  a  national  necessity  —  the  great 
forts  upon  the  coast,  the  naval  depots,  the  sup 
ply  of  ship-timber,  the  light-houses  and  guides 
to  navigation,  and  the  means  of  protecting  the 
commerce  of  the  country  —  but  they  also  as 
sume  a  right  to  the  eminent  domain  of  all  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  33 

public  lands  and  to  appropriate  them  according 
to  their  own  pleasure.  The  white  population 
of  Florida  to-day  is  about  double  what  it  was 
in  1845,  something  less  than  eighty  thousand ; 
and  if  we  suppose  the  public  lands  they  have 
seized  and  sequestered  by  this  exercise  of  the 
lawful  right  of  secession  to  be  twenty  millions 
of  acres,  they  would  be  able  to  divide  amongst 
the  present  white  men,  women,  and  children  of 
Florida  something  more  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty  acres  of  land  apiece,  which  would  repre 
sent  the  legitimate  profit  of  a  right  which,  it  is 
asserted,  the  founders  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  deliberately  and  in  the  full 
exercise  of  their  wisdom,  reserved  to  the  people 
of  the  States. 

Certainly,  we  might  very  reasonably  presume 
that,  if  the  framers  of  the  Government  con 
templated  such  a  possibility  as  the  case  of  Flor 
ida  presents,  now  in  actual  existence,  they 
would  have  ordained,  as  an  indispensable  enact 
ment  of  the  Constitution,  that  no  territory  ac 
quired  by  the  nation  should  ever  be  lifted  up 
into  the  dangerous  eminence  of  a  State  ;  that, 
indeed,  the  "  old  Thirteen  "  alone  should  limit 
the  circle  of  sovereignties  armed  with  this 
power  of  spoliation  ;  that  no  other  portion  of 
3 


34  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

the  national  domain  should  be  permitted  to 
hatch  its  cockatrice  brood  of  serpent  States 
to  sting  the  parent  which  nursed  them  in  its 
bosom. 

3.  The  Constitution  declares  that  "  no  State 
shall,  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  enter 
into  any  agreement  or  compact  with  another 
State."  Secession,  as  its  first  step,  annuls  this 
law  and  seeks  auxiliary  alliance  from  its  neigh 
bors. 

Nothing  would  be  so  impracticable,  and 
therefore  nothing  so  improbable,  in  the  devel 
opment  of  this  doctrine  of  secession,  as  the 
attempt  of  a  single  State  of  the  Union  to  set 
up  for  itself  an  independent  nationality,  to  be 
maintained  without  the  aid  and  concurrence  of 
other  States.  The  geographical  relations  of 
certain  groups  of  States,  into  which  the  Union 
is  divided  by  climate  and  production  and  by 
similarity  of  institution,  present,  very  distinctly 
to  our  notice,  characteristic  affinities  which  cre 
ate,  both  socially  and  politically,  a  more  inti 
mate  connection  between  the  members  of  these 
several  groups  than  is  observable  in  the  larger 
and  more  important  circle  of  the  Union  as 
defined  by  the  Constitution.  The  Planting 
States  form  one  of  these  groups ;  the  Western 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  35 

States  another :  so  of  the  Middle  States,  and, 
further  north,  the  New  England.  They  are  all 
associated  in  one  grand  and  beneficent  political 
bond  ;  but,  in  these  minor  and  natural  divisions, 
they  are  allied  by  sympathies  and  sentiments 
which  grow  out  of  proximity  of  position  and 
that  identification  of  pursuit  and  interest  which 
the  conditions  of  their  social  life  impress  upon 
them. 

When  any  State,  therefore,  should  meditate 
the  purpose  of  withdrawing  from  the  Union,  in 
the  exercise  of  this  asserted  right,  it  would  nat 
urally,  and  indeed  we  may  say  it  would  neces 
sarily,  as  an  indispensable  auxiliary  to  its  pur 
pose,  seek  the  alliance  of  the  States  which  stand 
in  kindred  relation  with  itself,  and  would  use 
all  the  means  at  its  command  to  enlist  them  in 
its  cause. 

So  apparent  is  this  necessity  to  persuade  or 
seduce  other  States  whose  prejudices  or  sym 
pathies  may  be  wrought  upon  to  concur  in  the 
work  of  disruption,  that  it  may  be  regarded  as 
the  most  flagrant  mischief  that  attends  the 
assertion  of  the  right  to  secede.  It  brings  up 
before  us  that  enormous  wrong,  —  the  most 
deadly  which  can  be  inflicted  on  any  State,  — 
the  secret  plotting  of  eager  agents  of  discon- 


36  MR.  AMBROSE'S   LETTERS. 

tent  to  inflame  the  heart  of  peaceful  communi 
ties  with  imaginary  griefs,  and  rouse  them  to 
the  temper  of  an  assault  against  the  existence 
of  the  nation.  It  shocks  us  by  the  perception 
of  a  danger  of  disintegration  which,  once  com 
menced,  may  go  on  until  the  whole  political 
fabric  is  crumbled  into  fragments. 

In  the  events  which  have  plunged  the  nation 
into  its  present  state  of  distress  we  have  nota 
ble  exemplification  of  this  incident  of  secession. 
The  discontents  of  South  Carolina  —  the  first 
State  which  inaugurated  the  civil  war  —  were 
notoriously  peculiar  to  that  Commonwealth. 
They  had  existed  for  thirty  years,  and  were 
greatly  exasperated  by  —  if  indeed  they  did 
not  owe  their  birth  to  —  the  quarrel  of  1832, 
when  the  pride  of  the  State  was  humbled  by 
the  peremptory  measures  taken  by  the  National 
Administration.  At  that  period  her  claim  to  a 
right  of  secession  was,  as  I  have  shown  in  a 
former  letter,  not  only  bluntly  repelled  by  the 
Government,  but  equally  repudiated  by  every 
State  in  the  Union,  and  Carolina  was  forced  to 
submit  not  less  by  the  threat  of  coercion  by 
President  Jackson,  than  by  the  rebuke  of  the 
States  to  which  she  had  appealed  for  coopera 
tion.  Her  mortified  pride  made  her  from  that 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  37 

era  the  inveterate  enemy  of  the  Union.  In 
the  act  of  secession  of  December,  1860,  she 
only  accomplished  the  long-harbored  design  for 
which  she  had  been  waiting  with  ill-concealed 
impatience  ever  since  the  arrow  had  pierced 
her  side. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  rash  boast  with 
which  she  entered  into  this  fatal  measure  — 
that  she  would  plunge  into  the  maelstrom  of 
secession  alone,  irrespective  of  cooperation  from 
any  other  State  —  no  one  believes  that  she 
would  have  assayed  the  experiment  if  she  had 
not  ascertained  beforehand  that  she  would  be 
supported  by  the  auxiliaries  which  immediately 
afterwards  hastened  to  her  aid.  There  is  abun 
dant  proof  in  this  concerted  movement  —  if 
we  had  it  not  from  other  sources  —  that,  long 
before  and  in  preparation  for  this  event,  a  con 
spiracy  had  been  formed  to  seduce,  cajole,  or 
compel  other  States  into  complicity  with  a  plot 
which  she  had  contrived  and  set  in  motion  for 
the  redress  of  her  own  griefs. 

The  whole  country  knows  with  what  signal 
and  almost  indignant  reproof  several  of  the 
States  now  in  rebellion  rejected  the  first  over 
tures  to  join  in  this  enterprise ;  how  emphati 
cally  tlie  people  of  Virginia,  Tennessee,  North 


38  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

Carolina,  Georgia,  Arkansas,  and  others  ex 
pressed  their  disapprobation  of  the  petulant 
and  boastful  treason  of  South  Carolina.  And 
yet  the  country  now  sees  these  very  States  sub 
dued  to  the  service  of  the  conspiracy  by  the 
intrigues  and  domineering  importunity  of  the 
political  agents  who  had  cast  their  fortunes  in 
this  venture. 

It  is  therefore,  that  I  say  the  worst  evil, 
attendant  upon  the  practical  assertion  of  this 
pretended  right  of  secession,  exists  in  the  fact 
that  an  imperious  necessity  forces  the  agents  of 
the  plot  to  the  device  of  infusing  their  own  dis 
content  into  the  minds  of  neighbor  communi 
ties,  and  of  seeking,  by  unlawful  solicitation 
and  sinister  arts,  to  spread  the  circle  of  the  con 
spiracy  over  other  States.  Thus,  the  letter  and 
the  theory  of  the  Constitution  are  violated  and 
set  at  nought  by  overtures  and  by  compact  and 
agreement  with  other  States,  which,  whether 
secret  or  open,  are  equally  offensive  and  repug 
nant  to  the  obligation  that  every  State  assumes 
on  entering  into  the  Union. 

4.  Secession  very  distinctly  assails  and  de 
stroys  the  personal  rights  conferred  by  the  Con 
stitution  upon  the  people  of  every  State  in  the 
Union. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  39 

Being  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  I  am 
entitled  to  all  the  privileges  of  that  citizen 
ship  in  every  State.  In  other  words,  no  State 
within  the  compass  of  the  Union,  as  created 
by  the  Constitution,  can  treat  me  as  an  alien. 
This  I  take  to  be  the  meaning  of  that  clause 
which  guarantees  to  the  citizens  of  each  State 
"  all  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in 
the  several  States." 

Secession  in  a  moment  rescinds  and  ignores 
this  right.  He  who  holds  a  patent  for  an  inven 
tion,  or  copyright  of  a  book,  loses  it  through 
out  the  seceded  States.  He  who  possesses 
property  in- such  a  State,  or  an  expectation  of 
an  inheritance  in  it,  may  be  deprived  of  it  by 
seizure  and  confiscation  or  by  escheat :  if  he 
be  a  creditor  he  may  be  forbidden  to  sue  for  or 
collect  his  debt.  In  all  these  cases  the  Amer 
ican  citizen,  who  is  secured  by  the  Constitu 
tion  against  any  interference  with  these  rights, 
becomes  dependent  on  the  comity  merely  of 
the  seceding  State  for  their  acknowledgment. 
Whatever  may  be  the  policy  of  such  a  State 
in  regard  to  this  acknowledgment  —  whether  it 
be  swayed  by  temperate  and  just  counsels  or 
by  the  angry  passions  which  are  most  likely  to 
predominate  in  the  separation  —  it  is  obvious 


40  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETIERS. 

that  the  citizen  of  the  nation  loses  every  per 
sonal  as  well  as  public  right,  which  the  fore 
thought  of  his  ancestors  had  conferred  upon 
him,  in  so  much  of  his  native  land  as  is  cut  off 
by  the  scission,  and  is  left  entirely  at  the  mercy 
of  the  State  for  such  favor  as  its  Government, 
exasperated  it  may  be  by  his  obtuseness  in  not 
assenting  to  the  teaching  of  secession,  may  be 
disposed  to  grant. 

5.  The  right  to  secede  from  the  Union  im 
plies  a  right  to  expel  from  the  Union.  If  one 
can  withdraw  from  many,  many  may  withdraw 
from  one.  If  the  Union  may  become  inconve 
nient  or  disagreeable  to  one,  one  may  become 
disagreeble  to  the  Union.  If  one,  for  that 
reason,  may  retire,  why  may  not  the  others  for 
that  reason  expel  ?  The  Constitution  makes 
no  regulation  for  either  case ;  and  if  the  logic 
of  secession  be  sound  —  that  the  State  sover 
eignty  may  be  resumed  on  a  motive  of  discon 
tent,  and  is  then  at  liberty  to  adopt  its  own 
"mode  and  measures  of  redress  "  —  the  logic 
is  equally  sound  that  infers  in  favor  of  a  ma 
jority  of  State  sovereigns,  being  discontented 
with  one,  the  same  liberty  to  adopt  their  own 
mode  and  measure  of  redress.  These  rights  — 

O 

if  there  be   any  right  at  all  to  break  up  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  41 

compact  of  Union  —  are  correlatives.  Can  any 
champion  of  these  transcendent  State-rights 
distinguish  between  the  lawfulness  of  these  two 
proceedings  of  secession  and  expulsion  ?  Both 
have  the  same  foundation,  if  either  have  any, 
in  that  sovereign  "  wTill  and  pleasure  "  which 
secessionists  affirm  every  State  retains  in  petto 
as  a  reserved  prerogative. 

Now,  we  may  fancy  with  what  a  fiery  burst 
of  insulted  majesty  one  of  these  hot-headed 
States  which  have  been  so  arrogant  in  their 
claim  of  a  right  of  secession — South  Carolina, 
for  example  —  would  have  resented  a  proposi 
tion  of  expulsion  suggested  to  the  Council  of 
the  Union  by  any  other  State  as  the  peaceful 
process  allowed  by  the  Constitution  to  get  rid 
of  her  as  a  troublesome  sister.  Imagine  the 
flare-up  in  the  Old  Dominion  against  the  inso 
lence  of  such  a  proceeding  applied  to  her. 
What  conclaves  should  we  not  have,  what  a 
flurry  of  political  conventions,  what  a  buzz  and 
hum  in  every  village,  what  indignant  protests 
against  usurped  power  from  sophisters  of  the 
State-rights  academy,  what  refined  distinctions 
and  discriminations  from  the  abstraction-mon 
gers,  and  what  instant  threat  of  war,  seizure 
of  Gosport  Navy- Yard,  of  Harper's  Ferry,  of 


42  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

forts  and  arsenals,  and  all  the  other  violences 
and  menaces  which  burgeon  from  the  stock  of 
Southern  temper  !  What !  claim  a  right  to 
drive  a  sovereign  State  out  of  the  Union  made 
by  our  fathers  ;  to  deprive  us  of  our  inestimable 
privileges  ,as  members  of  the  Great  Republic, 
whose  birth  was  consecrated  by  the  blood  of 
heroes  from  every  State  and  shed  upon  a  hun 
dred  fields ;  to  strip  us  of  our  proud  preroga 
tive  of  American  citizenship  ;  to  derange  or 
destroy  our  commerce  ;  to  deprive  us  of  our 
rights  in  the  common  domain,  won  by  the 
united  strength  and  valor  of  all  the  States ;  to 
take  awray  from  us  the  protection  of  the  com 
mon  defence,  our  share  in  the  benefits  of  the 
common  treasure,  and  to  cast  us  upon  the  wide 
world  a  dwarfed  and  dishonored  people,  a  prey 
to  the  power  and  domination  of  any  enemy 
who  may  find  it  his  interest  to  subdue  us ; 
and  then  to  insult  our  intelligence  by  telling  us 
that  your  right  to  inflict  this  injury  and  disgrace 
upon  us  is  a  right  reserved  to  you  by  the  found 
ers  of  our  Union  ! ! ! 

What  a  volume  of  such  rhetoric  as  this  would 
be  poured  out  at  every  cross-road  hustings  in 
the  whole  country ! 

Repulsive  as  the  assertion  of  such  a  claim  as 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  43 

this  would  be  to  the  cherished  traditional  idea 
of  national  unity  and  to  the  common  percep 
tion  of  the  duty  of  securing  to  every  State  its 
rights  in  the  Union,  in  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  been  educated,  it  is  not 
more  repulsive  than  that  parallel  and  correla 
tive  claim  of  a  State  to  retire  from  this  con 
nection  at  its  own  pleasure.  Of  the  two,  the 
latter  is  the  least  tolerable  in  a  fair,  statesman 
like  estimate  of  its  incongruity  with  the  gen 
eral  welfare  of  the  nation ;  for,  whilst  the  first 
is  the  most  improbable  of  all  contingencies  in 
the  progress  of  government,  and  would  never 
even  be  thought  of  but  under  such  provocation 
as,  in  the  nature  of  things,  must  be  so  exces 
sive,  persistent,  and  enormous  as  to  be,  in  com 
mon  experience,  impossible ;  the  latter,  as  our 
recent  history  proves,  would  be  an  ever-present 
danger  from  its  adaptation  to  the  use  of  politi 
cal  faction  and  from  its  quality  to  captivate  the 
multitude  by  its  flattery  of  State  pride. 

To  an  earnest  and  thoughtful  reflection  on  'y 
the  attributes  of  our  Union  and  the  dangers  to 
which  it  is  exposed,  it  must  occur  that  all  that 
can  be  urged  against  the  expulsion  of  a  State, 
may  be  with  equal  force,  and  with  deeper  con 
viction  of  the  necessity  of  impressing  it  upon 


44  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

the  popular  mind,  be  urged  against  the  seces 
sion,  of  a  State.  The  arguments  touching  the 
right  are  the  same  ;  the  mischief  to  be  averted 
is  incomparably  the  greater  in  the  case  of 
secession. 

I  might  enlarge  this  enumeration  of  the  anom 
alies  which  become  apparent  in  the  contrast  be 
tween  the  manifest  design  which  the  authors  of 
the  Constitution  had  in  view,  and  the  equally 
manifest  incidents  which  belong  to  the  practi 
cal  application  of  this  pretended  right  of  seces- 
sion.  But  it  is  only  necessary  to  glance  at 
those  which  I  have  arranged  under  these  five 
divisions,  to  perceive  that  the  antagonism  is  so 
positive  and  so  destructive  of  the  scheme  of  the 
Union  which  occupied  the  thoughts  of  the  leg 
islators,  that  to  impute  to  them  such  an  obstruc 
tion,  as  a  premeditated  contrivance,  is  to  charge 
them  with  the  folly  of  constructing  a  machine 
which,  by  its  inherent  disregard  of  mechan 
ical  laws,  was  incapable  of  performing  its  most 
necessary  and  important  functions  —  a  machine 
which  must  soon  jar  itself  out  of  all  possibility 
of  action  and  tumble  to  pieces  by  the  strain  of 
its  own  friction.  We  should  lose  all  respect 
for  the  memory  of  such  bungling  workmen,  as 
this  theory  would  compel  us  to  regard  those 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  45 

great  and  good  statesmen  who  have,  for  seventy 
years,  been  consecrated  in  our  affections  as  the 
wisest  and  best  of  the  founders  of  States. 

So  far,  in  the  consideration  of  this  question 
of  secession,  I  have  confined  my  view  to  the 
difficulties  which  the  doctrine  presents  as  an 
impediment  to  the  administration  of  the  Gov 
ernment  in  conformity  with  the  obvious  design 
of  the  Constitution.  In  the  next  letter  I  shall 
discuss  it  more  briefly  under  another  aspect. 


46  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 


LETTER   IV. 

SECESSION. 

MARCH,  1863. 

IF  we  could  accord  to  the  philosophy  of  the 
Southern  school  the  merit  of  even  a  plausible 
theory,  in  its  inculcation  of  the  right  of  seces 
sion,  and  could  admit  that  this  right  secured  a 
principle  which  a  State  might,  in  some  possible 
emergency,  find  it  useful  to  bring  into  practice 
for  its  own  advantage,  and  that,  contemplating 
the  rare  occurrence  of  such  a  possibility,  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  did  really  intend  to 
give  it  a  place  in  their  scheme,  as  a  latent  power 
to  be  awakened  into  activity  only  as  a  substi 
tute  for  revolution,  we  should  find  ourselves 
arrested  at  that  point  by  the  remarkable  failure 
of  the  Constitution  to  provide  for  its  own  exe 
cution  ;  and,  in  the  total  absence  of  all  regula 
tion  upon  this  subject,  we  should  be  obliged  to 
conclude  either  that  this  feature  of  the  scheme 
was  abandoned,  or  that,  in  some  moment  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  47 

drowsy  forgetfulness,  those  notoriously  vigilant 
and  astute  gentlemen  whom  we  are  accustomed 
to  laud  as  the  sages  of  our  golden  age  —  Wash 
ington,  Hamilton,  Franklin,  and  the  rest  — 
had  withdrawn  from  their  watch  and  left  their 
otherwise  consummate  work  not  only  unfinished 
but  actually  too  imperfect  to  admit  of  the  first 
step  towards  the  demonstration  of  this  element, 
which,  it  is  said,  they  intended  to  incorporate 
into  the  structure.  On  this  matter  of  secession 
they  preserved  a  silence  so  profound,  and  so 
extraordinary  —  if  they  had  any  consciousness 
of  its  existence  —  as  to  make  it  the  most  ob 
scure  and  helpless  of  antiquarian  studies  to 
determine,  at  this  day,  whether  a  solitary  man 
of  that  era  ever  heard  the  idea  of  secession 
broached,  or  ever  dreamed  of  it  himself.  Noth 
ing  so  difficult  now  as  to  tell  when  it  was  first 
thought  of,  who  originated  it,  and  where  it  is 
to  be  found. 

Looking  to  the  portentous  magnitude  of  this 
power,  to  the  embarrassments  it  would  produce, 
and  the  contingencies  it  would  create,  it  is  in 
conceivable  that  law-makers  of  the  most  ordi 
nary  sagacity  could  recognize  it  as  an  existing 
principle  in  their  scheme  of  government,  with 
out  devoting  a  chapter  to  its  definition  and  to 


48  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

the  necessary  provision  for  its  consequences. 
They  would  have  devised  ordinances  to  meet 
every  category  into  which  an  act  of  secession 
would  have  thrown  the  country.  They  would 
have  pointed  out  the  modus  operandi,  —  the 
assembling  perhaps  of  a  National  Convention, 
the  manner  of  announcement  of  the  proposed 
withdrawal,  and  the  arrangement  of  its  condi 
tions.  They  would  have  made  a  rule  for  the 
division  of  public  property,  the  payment  of 
debts,  the  modification  of  treaties,  the  protec 
tion  of  private  rights,  the  disposal  of  territory, 
and  the  numerous  other  matters  affecting  the 
public  peace  and  safety,  which  this  destructive 
process  would  call  into  urgent  notice. 

To  make  secession  what  it  is  claimed  to  be, 
a  peaceable  proceeding,  would  require  a  code  of 
legislation  of  the  highest  wisdom.  Without, 
such  legislation  its  attempt  could  be  nothing 
else  than  a  turbulent,  headlong  rush  into  a  melee 
of  fierce  political  strife. 

Now,  we  are  to  suppose  that,  with  all  these 
necessities  and  direful  consequences  in  view, 
our  fathers  consented  in  silence  to  this  malig 
nant  power ;  that  they  delivered  to  their  pos 
terity  the  great  work  confided  to  their  labor  — 
the  creation  of  an  Union  designed  to  be  as  per- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  49 

feet  and  as  nearly  perpetual  as  human  wisdom 
could  make  it  —  with  the  seeds  of  this  mortal 
disease  planted  in  its  heart,  planted  with  their 
knowledge  and  approval ;  that  they  made  no 
provision  to  mitigate  its  virulence  or  assuage 
the  pain  of  its  stroke ;  did  not  even  name  it, 
but  left  it  a  silent  and  lurking  poison  in  the 
inmost  depths  of  the  Constitution,  to  destroy 
the  life  of  the  nation  whenever  occasion  might 
awaken  it  into  activity.  We  are  to  believe  this, 
and  then  exalt  our  fathers  amongst  the  bene 
factors  of  mankind,  as  the  first  founders  of  a 
State  who  ever  had  the  sagacity  to  provide  a 
power  for  the  early  and  swift  destruction  of 
their  own  work,  and  to  leave  that  power  under 
the  simple  guidance  of  its  own  unregulated  dis 
cretion,  or,  as  present  events  interpret  it,  its 
own  blind  passion. 

This  conclusion  is  the  more  revolting  to  us, 
when  we  reflect,  in  the  light  of  events  now  dis 
turbing  the  country,  by  what  dishonest  means 
a  State  may  be  driven  to  practice  this  method 
of  separation ;  how  much  it  is  at  the  hazard  of 
faction  ;  how  the  proceeding  may  be  procured 
by  a  forced  vote  against  the  will  of  the  people  ; 
how  it  may  be  stimulated  by  the  mad  impulses 
of  a  day,  in  some  access  of  that  capricious  rage 
4 


50  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

to  which  the  passions  of  the  multitude  are  so 
easily  excited  by  popular  leaders.  This  step 
once  taken,  the  natural  drift  of  events  soon 
makes  it  irrevocable.  No  day  of  calmer  judg 
ment,  no  future  repentance  of  a  generation 
weeping  over  the  crime  of  their  ancestors, 
may  haply  find  the  juncture  suitable  to  restora 
tion.  Or  if  that  season  to  retrieve  the  error 
come,  how  mournfully  may  it  illustrate,  by  its 
delay,  the  dreadful  catastrophe  of  a  plunge  into 
an  abyss  from  which  the  return  is  only  through 
an  ocean  of  blood  and  years  of  sorrow  ! 

Turning  aside  from  these  considerations, 
which  seem  to  be  sufficiently  cogent  of  them 
selves  to  settle  the  question,  I  propose  to  devote 
this  letter  to  a  few  remarks  upon  what  I  regard 
the  total  unsoundness  of  the  argument  by  which 
the  advocates  of  the  right  of  secession  generally 
undertake  to  maintain  it.  They  are  accus 
tomed  to  affirm  that  it  legitimately  results  from 
the  theory  of  the  original  or  antecedent  sover 
eignty  of  the  States ;  that  the  States,  when  they 
entered  into  the  compact  of  Union,  reserved 
all  the  rights  of  absolute  sovereignty,  to  be 
resumed  by  them,  whenever  they,  in  their  own 
judgment  of  the  necessity,  might  think  proper 
to  do  so.  They  go  further  than  this,  and,  refin- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  51 

ing  upon  the  nature  of  sovereignty,  they  say 
that  this  right  to  resume  did  not  require  any 
assertion  as  a  reserved  power,  but  necessarily 
resulted  from  the  inherent  and  inalienable  qual 
ity  of  sovereignty ;  that  it  is  of  no  avail  in  the 
argument  to  inquire  whether  the  founders  of  the 
Union  had  or  had  not  a  conception  of  seces 
sion,  the  right  to  withdraw  from  the  compact 
was  still  there  in  virtue  of  the  original  sover 
eignty,  and  could  not  be  given  away  even  by 
the  State  itself.  It  was  something  of  "  a  higher 
law,"  a  kind  of  divine  right,  far  above  the  Con 
stitution  and  Union ;  a  right  which  lay  in  nubi- 
bus,  or  —  in  language  more  suitable  to  its  high 
pretension  —  in  the  empyrean,  until  it  was 
wanted  here  on  earth.  This  is  the  transcen 
dental  extreme  of  the  Southern  philosophy  on 
the  subject.  The  Seceding  States  have  acted 
on  this  theory.  Some  of  them  simply  repealed 
the  declaration  of  their  assent  to  the  ratification 
of  the  Constitution ;  repealed,  as  Mr.  Everett 
has  well  stated  it,  "an  historical  fact,"  —  im 
plying,  by  that  act,  that  what  was  once  a  fact 
of  past  time  is  no  longer  a  fact ;  they  repealed 
the  fact  that,  in  the  year  1789,  Virginia  agreed 
to  come  into  the  Union  on  the  terms  proposed, 
—  an  incident  no  more  repealable  than  the  sur- 


52  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

render  of  Yorktown.  The  act  of  ratification 
was  a  deed,  not  a  law  ;  it  was  an  acknowledg 
ment  of  fealty  to  the  United  States,  which 
neither  party  conceived  was  an  act  subject  to 
any  modification  or  repeal  by  any  future  leg 
islature  or  convention.  Since  that  day  the 
higher  law  has  been  discovered,  and  has  been 
brought  down  from  its  cloudy  abode  —  deus 
ex  machina —  to  throw  our  whole  continent 
into  confusion. 

I  need  not  say,  after  what  I  have  written  in 
my  previous  letter,  that  I  totally  dissent  from 
every  item  in  this  summary  of  the  doctrine  of 
secession  ;  but,  for  the  present,  I  pretermit  all 
objection  to  the  theory  it  proposes,  and  pro 
ceed  to  notice  the  condition  in  which  it  leaves 
the  question. 

Suppose  it  be  a  sound  principle  that  this 
right  results  from  the  original  sovereignty  of  the 
State,  and  that  no  compact,  however  solemn, 
can  bind  a  State  to  the  renunciation  or  circum 
scription  of  its  sovereign  attributes  longer  than 
it  is  its  own  continuous  will  to  be  bound;. or 
suppose  that  those  States,  in  forming  the  Union, 
actually  reserved  this  right,  as  the  prerogative 
of  their  antecedent  sovereignty,  these  admis 
sions  would  bring  us  to  the  recognition  of  an 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  53 

anomalous  diversity  in  the  composition  of  the 
Union,  which  has  never  hitherto  been  perceived, 
and  which  would,  if  it  really  existed,  become 
the  source  of  endless  quarrel.  The  right  of 
secession,  on  this  foundation,  would  be  limited 
to  those  States  only  which  can  establish  a  claim 
to  an  original  or  preexisting  sovereignty.  The  ^ 
Union  would  be  divided  into  States  having  the 
right,  and  States  not  having  the  right  —  one 
portion  of  the  Confederacy  elevated  in  rank 
and  majesty  above  the  other.  Those  having 
the  right  would  be  the  "old  Thirteen,"  with 
the  addition  of  the  State  of  Texas,  which  came 
into  the  Union  bringing  with  it  the  attributes 
of  a  previously  existing  sovereignty. 

The  Union  now  consists  —  speaking  of  it 
as  it  was  at  the  commencement  of  the  rebel 
lion  —  of  thirty-four  States.  Of  these,  twenty- 
one  have  been  created  by  act  of  Congress; 
and  amongst  these  twenty-one,  Texas  alone 
had  an  anterior  existence  as  a  sovereign  power. 
Twenty  of  the  States,  therefore,  are,  as  lim 
ited  sovereignties,  the  mere  creatures  of  the 
National  Government. 

Can  it  be  claimed  for  these  twenty  States, 
that  they  hold  a  reserved  right  to  resume  their 
sovereignty  and  to  retire  from  the  Union  as  in- 


54  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

dependent  nations  ?  Clearly,  resumption  is  not 
the  word  applicable  to  them.  How  resume  what 
they  never  had,  —  absolute  and  independent 
sovereignty  ?  So  there  is  another  distinction 
that  cannot  be  got  rid  of,  —  States  in  the  Union 
that  may  resume,  and  States  that  may  not  re 
sume.  These  new  States,  if  they  do  anything 
in  this  way,  must  seize  what  was  never  given 
to  them,  —  must  usurp  a  prerogative  they  never 
had,  in  order  to  bring  them  to  an  equal  dignity 
with  the  old  States,  or  elevate  them  to  the  rank 
of  Texas.  That  is  the  absurd  dilemma  of  seces 
sion.  Many  of  those  States  are  formed  on  ter 
ritory  purchased  by  the  National  Government 
for  the  benefit  of  the  nation  ;  all  of  them  on 
territory  either  purchased  or  ceded  for  the  ad 
vancement  of  the  common  welfare.  If  they 
lapse  from  their  present  condition  by  abandon 
ing  their  privileges  in  the  Union,  one  would 
naturally  say  they  lapsed  back  into  thoir  orig 
inal  predicament.  That  is  precisely  what  the 
old  States  claim  by  their  secession.  The  new 
States  would  fall  back  into  Territories,  the  old 
ones  into  Sovereignties.  And  thus  we  have 

O 

another  distinction  between  the  States,  logi 
cally  resulting  from  the  theory  of  secession. 
The  idea  that  the  new  States  could  lapse  into 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  55 

something  greater  than  their  original  condition 
is  a  solecism  that,  in  a  less  grave  argument, 
would  be  called  "  a  bull."  The  Territories 
were  not  given  away  to  the  people  who  inhabit 
them,  but  organized  for  the  use  and  advantage 
of  the  Union.  They  had  no  antecedent  sover 
eignty  whatever.  They  were  clothed  with  no 
power  but  that  which  was  necessary  to  make 
them  loyal  members  of  the  American  Union. 
The  most  absurd  thought  that  could  be  im 
puted  to  Congress,  when  it  gave  them  political 
existence,  is,  that  in  elevating  them  to  the  rank 
of  States,  it  was  giving  them  a  power  to  destroy 
the  Union,  and  to  aggrandize  themselves  at  the 
expense  of  all  the  other  States.  It  is  simply  pre 
posterous  to  say  that  the  Constitution  contem 
plated  any  such  consequence  wrhen  it  author 
ized  Congress  to  create  new  States.  If  such  a 

o 

consequence  could,  in  any  contingency,  law 
fully  result  from  this  power,  no  greater  folly 
could  be  ascribed  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States  than  that  of  authorizing  any  Territory 
to  be  erected  into  a  State.  It  would  be  a  cheap 
wray  of  despoiling  the  Union  of  its  most  valued 
possessions. 

At  one  time  the  Government  intimated  a 
wish  to  purchase  Cuba  for  one  hundred  mil- 


56  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

lions  of  money.  What  possible  inducement 
could  persuade  an  American  statesman  to  de 
sire  such  an  acquisition,  if  the  acknowledged, 
lawful  consequence  of  such  a  purchase  could, 
in  any  event,  authorize  the  inhabitants  of  that 
island,  after  they  were  organized  as  a  State  of 
the  Union,  —  which  would  have  immediately 
followed,  —  to  withdraw  from  the  compact  and 
assume  an  absolute  sovereign  dominion  over 
that  rich  possession,  appropriate  its  land  to 
their  own  use,  and  deprive  the  nation  of  all  the 
advantage  it  designed  by  the  purchase  ?  Yet 
such  is  the  claim  made  by  the  right  of  seces 
sion,  and  such  not  only  the  possibility,  but, 
judging  from  our  recent  experience  in  the  case 
of  Florida  and  Louisiana,  the  imminent  prob 
ability  of  the  assertion  of  this  right.  Once  let 
the  people  of  Cuba  into  the  secret  of  our  "  ver 
dant  simplicity"  on  this  point,  and  we  open  to 
them  the  perception  of  an  easy  and  profitable 
device  by  which  they  may  obtain  one  hundred 
millions  of  our  money  and  still  secure  Cuba  to 
their  own  disposal  and  control. 

This  is  a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  and  ought 
to  be  conclusive  to  any  sound  judgment,  that 
the  right  of  secession  cannot  be  predicated,  at 
least  in  the  case  of  the  new  States,  —  I  mean 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  57 

the  States  created  by  act  of  Congress.  Now,  I 
think  it  is  good  argument  to  say,  that  if  there 
be  no  right  of  secession  in  the  new  States,  it 
does  not  exist  in  the  old.  Our  system  was 
designed  to  be  homogeneous.  We  detect  no 
discrimination  between  the  States  in  their  con 
stitutional  description.  They  are  all  designated 
by  the  same  investiture  of  rights  and  duties ; 
literally  equal  in  all  attributes  and  relations. 
The  distinction  between  new  and  old  is  simply 
chronological.  The  authority  to  make  addi 
tions  to  the  Union  is  given  in  few  words,  with 
out  qualification.  "  New  States  may  be  ad 
mitted  by  Congress  into  this  Union."  That  is 
all  the  Constitution  utters  on  the  subject. 

It  could  not  have  escaped  the  authors  of  this 
clause  that  the  new  States  would,  in  process  of 
time,  grow  up  to  great  influence  and  impor 
tance  in  the  system.  They  probably  foresaw 
that  these  States  might  eventually  come  to 
constitute,  in  numbers  and  wealth,  the  most 
powerful  portion  of  the  Union ;  for  they  had 
even  then  large  territories  in  their  view  which 
were  beginning  to  germinate  in  the  develop 
ment  of  political  organization.  New  acquisi 
tions  of  territory  were  probably  not  beyond  the 
forecast  of  many  members  of  the  Convention. 


58  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

They  were  also  convinced  that  no  disparity  of 
rights  between  old  and  new  States  would  ever 
be  recognized  or  tolerated. 

Now,  the  new  States  —  those  to  be  formed 
out  of  the  public  domain  —  having  no  pretence 
to  a  right  of  secession  deduced  from  original 
sovereignty,  could  only  obtain  it  by  express 
grant.  Such  a  grant  no  one  has  ventured  to 
contend  is  found  in  the  Constitution.  We 
may  fairly  argue  that  if  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  believed  the  old  States  had  this 
right  by  implication,  they  would  have  also  con 
ferred  it  upon  the  new  by  grant ;  that  they  did 
not  so  confer  it  on  the  latter,  is  proof  that  they 
did  not  believe  in  its  existence  in  the  former. 
The  conferring  of  it  upon  either  would  have 
been  to  recognize  what  I  have  shown  to  be,  in 
the  pld  States  a  right  to  perpetrate  a  most  fla 
grant  injury  upon  the  country,  and,  in  the  new, 
a  right  to  aggravate  the  crime  of  breaking  up 
the  Union  by  adding  to  it  the  inducement  to 
plunder  the  public  treasury  by  the  trick  of 
seizing  the  public  domain ;  —  even,  in  a  sup- 
posable  case  like  that  of  Cuba,  to  convert  a 
large  appropriation  for  a  purchase  into  a  gra 
tuity  without  an  equivalent.  Doubtless  the 
answer  to  this  insinuation  would  be,  that  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  59 

honor  of  the  States  which  boast  of  their  chiv 
alry  may  be  safely  trusted  that  no  such  wrong 
would  be  inflicted.  That  might  have  been 
a  plausible  answer  years  ago.  But  look  at 
Florida  now.  Look  at  every  seceding  State 
that  holds  any  portion  of  the  public  domain. 
Look  at  the  seizure  of  the  mint,  —  the  early 
and  swift  confiscation  of  all  Government  prop 
erty, —  as  the  first  steps  in  the  rebellion.  We 
shall  have  a  settlement  of  all  these,  perhaps,  at 
the  Greek  Kalends ! 

I  have  but  one  more  point  to  notice  in  my 
reference  to  the  special  grounds  upon  which 
the  secessionists  defend  their  doctrine,  and 
with  that  I  shall  finish  this  letter  and  dismiss 
the  subject. 

The  whole  argument  in  favor  of  secession  is 
founded  on  a  petitio  principii  which  I  hold  to 
be  totally  inadmissible.  The  common  state 
ment  of  that  argument  is,  that  the  Union  is 
but  a  confederacy  of  sovereign  States ;  merely 
a  complex  league,  in  which  each  member  re 
tains  all  the  sovereignty  of  an  independent 
nation  ;  that  the  Federal  Government  is  noth 
ing  more  than  an  agency  created  by  these 
States  for  the  convenience  of  performing  cer 
tain  functions  for  their  benefit.  From  this 


60  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

statement,  the  deduction  seems  to  be  univer 
sally  accepted  by  the  secessionists,  and  even  too 
carelessly  allowed  by  their  opponents,  that  the 
Union  being  a  league,  any  member  of  it  has  a 
right  to  withdraw  whenever  it  chooses  to  do  so. 
They  concede  that  if  the  United  States  were  a 
Nation,  in  the  proper  sense  of  that  term,  they 
could  not  do  this.  A  League,  they  say,  pre 
sents  a  different  case.  A  member  may  with 
draw  from  a  league. 

Now,  I  do  not  mean  to  spend  any  time  in 
controverting  the  basis  on  which  this  proposi 
tion  rests,  —  the  affirmation,  namely,  that  the 
Union  is  simply  a  league,  or  that  it  was  cre 
ated  only  by  the  States.  That  notion  has  been 
abundantly  refuted  by  abler  pens  than  mine. 
But  I  deny  the  deduction  drawn  from  this  ba 
sis.  If  this  were  true,  in  point  of  fact,  I  think 
it  a  great  mistake  to  affirm  that  the  member  of 
a  League  of  sovereign  States  has  any  right  to 
retire  from  the  association  at  its  own  pleasure. 

A  league  between  States  is  a  compact  more 
solemn  and  more  binding  than  an  ordinary 
treaty  between  nations.  It  has  all  the  charac 
teristics  and  responsibilities  of  a  treaty ;  but  it 
has  something  more.  It  involves  the  delicate 
relations  of  a  government  within  the  orbit  as- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  61 

signed  to  it ;  invites  and  necessitates  the  adop 
tion  of  a  course  of  action  and  policy  which 
pledges  a  common  faith  to  the  due  observance 
of  numerous  obligations  indispensable  to  the 
daily  discharge  of  its  functions.  It  is  con 
stantly  contracting  engagements  to  which  every 
member  of  the  league  is  bound,  and  which, 
being  for  the  benefit  of  the  whole,  cannot  be 
repudiated  by  one  without  inflicting  a  wrong 
—  sometimes  a  vital  wrong  —  upon  the  rest. 

In  respect  to  a  common  treaty  between  two 
nations,  it  may  be  said,  in  a  loose  sense,  that 
either  party  has  a  right  to  declare  that  the 
treaty  has  been  violated  by  the  other ;  but  the 
other  has  an  equal  right  to  deny  the  infraction. 
If  they  cannot  accommodate  matters,  the  only 
resort  for  a  settlement  of  the  difference  is  to 
war.  To  retire  from  a  treaty  is  to  give  a  law 
ful  cause  for  war.  There  is  no  such  thing 
known  as  a  peaceable  right  to  secede  from  a 
treaty,  unless  the  treaty  contains  an  express 
stipulation  to  that  effect.  Such  a  right  never 
results  from  the  single  fact  of  the  absolute 
sovereignty  of  the  parties. 

What  foundation,  then,  is  there  for  the  as 
sertion  that,  in  a  league,  this  sovereignty  of 
the  parties  gives  each  this  right  ? 


62  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

The  old  Confederation  which  existed  before 
the  present  Constitution,  was  strictly  a  league 
of  States.  It  did  not  pretend  to  be  a  nation. 
Yet  nothing  was  more  abhorrent  to  the  ideas 
of  the  men  who  formed,  and  acted  under,  that 
Confederation,  than  this  notion  of  a  right  exist 
ing  in  any  member  to  secede  from  it,  or  in  any 
manner  to  alter  its  terms  but  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  all  the  members.  The  nature  and 
force  of  the  Confederate  obligations  on  this 
point  are  well  defined  by  Luther  Martin  in  his 
address  to  the  Legislature  of  Maryland,  on  his 
return  from  the  Convention  which  formed  the 
Constitution. 

Speaking  of  the  old  Confederation,  he  says  : 

"  That  in  forming  our  original  Federal  Government 
every  member  of  that  Government,  that  is,  each  State, 
expressly  consented  to  it ;  that  it  is  a  part  of  the  compact 
made  and  entered  into,  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  that 
there  should  be  no  dissolution  or  alteration  of  that  Federal 
Government  without  the  consent  of  every  Slate,  the  mem 
bers  of  and  parties  to  the  original  compact ;  that,  there 
fore,  no  alteration  could  be  made  by  the  consent  of  a  part 
of  these  States,  or  by  the  consent  of  the  inhabitants  of 
a  part  of  these  States,  which  could  either  release  the 
States  so  consenting  from  the  obligation  they  are  under 
to  the  other  States,  or  which  could  in  any  manner  be 
come  obligatory  upon  those  States  that  should  not  ratify 
such  alterations/' 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  63 

This  argument  was  used  by  Mr.  Martin  in 
support  of  his  opposition  to  the  mode  proposed 
by  the  Convention  for  the    ratification  of  the 
Constitution     by    the     concurrence   of    seven 
States  ;  and,  being  used  simply  in  the  way  of 
argument,  was  an  appeal  to  the  received  opin 
ion  of  that  day  in  reference  to  the  old  Confed 
eration, —  an  opinion  which,  apart  from  his  own 
high  authority,  was  clearly  a  correct  one.   Now, 
it  must  be  observed  that  the  Articles  of  Confed 
eration  are  as  silent  as  the  Constitution  on  the 
subject  of  secession.     Mr.  Martin's  argument 
is  a  deduction  from  the  nature  of  the  compact 
or  treaty  of  Confederation  ;  that,  although  the 
States  were  recognized  in  that  compact  as  abso 
lute   sovereignties,  they  could  not  dissolve  or 
alter  the  Government  without  the  unanimous 
consent  of  the  members  in  the  league.    Where 
was  the  right  of  secession  if  this  view  is  a  sound 
one?      The  whole   of   Mr.   Martin's   address, 
which  is  an  elaborate  discussion  on  the  princi 
ples  of  the  Constitution,  is  worthy  of  study  in 
reference   to  this  question.     He  was  a  harsh 
critic  upon  the  labors  of  the  Convention  ;  saw 
many  defects  in  the  Constitution  which  time 
has  proved  to  be  imaginary ;  made  many  proph 
ecies  of  its  malign  influence  upon  the  country 


64  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

which  have  never  been  fulfilled ;  complained 
of  its  nationality  as  pregnant  with  mischief  to 
the  States,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  say,  "  we 
considered  the  system  proposed  to  be  the  most 
complete,  most  abject  system  of  slavery  that 
the  wit  of  man  ever  devised  under  the  pretence 
of  forming  a  Government  of  free  States;" 
yet,  with  all  these  evil  portents  looming  upon 
his  disturbed  vision,  it  never  occurred  to  him 
that  there  was  lodged  in  this  system  a  power 
which  could  in  a  moment  shiver  it  into  atoms, 
and  thus  dissipate  all  these  apprehensions  of 
the  terrible  bondage  to  which  he  fancied  these 
"Free  States"  were  doomed.  Indeed,  it  is  im 
possible  to  read  that  address  without  perceiv 
ing,  on  every  page,  that  the  idea  of  secession 
never  entered  into  his  thoughts,  and  had  never 
been  entertained  by  the  men  of  that  day.  It 
would  have  at  once  dispelled  all  his  fears-  and 
answered  half  the  objections  he  so  anxiously 
urged  against  the  work  of  his  compatriots. 

The  student  of  our  history  will  find  many  tes 
timonies  in  the  records  of  our  initiatory  era,  in 
addition  to  this  of  Mr.  Martin,  which  will  be 
equally  conclusive  to  convince  him  that  no  man 
who  had  any  part  in  the  fabrication  of  the  Con 
stitution,  nor  any  portion  of  the  public  who 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  65 

anxiously  watched  the  progress  of  that  work, 
ever  intimated  an  idea  that  a  right  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union  existed  either  by  inference  or 
grant  as  a  privilege  left  to  or  conferred  upon 
the  respective  States.  Upon  that  point  the 
silence  was  universal  and  pregnant  with  mean 
ing.  It  is  very  evident  that  generation  re 
garded  the  compact  as  designed  to  be  perpetual. 
They  would  not  even  agree,  as  may  be  seen  in 
Mr.  Madison's  letter  to  a  member  of  the  New 
York  Convention,  to  allow  a  State  to  make  a 
conditional  ratification,  by  way  of  experimental 
probation  of  the  Constitution,  before  a  final  ac 
ceptance  of  it.  It  was  to  be  perpetual ;  they 
must  take  it  so,  or  not  at  all,  is  the  import  of 
his  direction. 

We  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  that  the 
founders  interpreted  the  ratification  as  an  irre 
vocable  surrender  by  each  State  of  all  the  power 
required  to  be  surrendered  for  the  common 
benefit.  And,  as  the  Government  was  the 
compound  result  of  State  action  and  popu 
lar  action,  the  surrender  of  power  by  the 
State  was  an  act  which  was  confirmed  and 
rendered  doubly  irrevocable  by  the  concurrent 
vote  of  the  people  of  the  whole  of  the  States, 
who  came  in  as  a  third  party,  binding  them- 

6 


66  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

selves  and  their  States  to  the  compact,  through 
their  several  State  Conventions.  Out  of  this 
joint  action  between  States  and  people  grew 
A  NATION,  in  which  was  skilfully  and  beauti 
fully  combined  two  sovereignties,  —  the  one 
the  complement  of  the  other,  —  a  national 
sovereignty  supreme  in  the  national  sphere  ;  a 
State  sovereignty  supreme  in  the  State  sphere ; 
neither  clashing  with  the  other,  but  both  to 
gether  making  up  the  whole  sum  of  sovereignty 
which  is  essential  to  a  complete  nation.  The 
States  were  clean  shorn  of  every  vestige  of 
sovereignty  in  the  circle  allotted  to  the  National 
Government ;  and  the  National  Government 
was,  in  like  manner,  shorn  of  every  vestige  of 
sovereignty  in  the  circle  appropriated  to  the 
State  government.  They  were  complements 
to  each  other;  and  the  National  Government 
has  just  as  much  right  to  abrogate  the  State 
power  and  release  itself  from  its  obligations  to 
the  States,  as  the  States  have  to  abrogate  the 
national  power  and  release  themselves  from 
their  obligations  to  the  nation. 

This  view  of  the  mutual  relations  between 
the  two  authorities  distinctly  defines  national 
rights  and  State  rights,  which  are  equally  clear, 
equally  sacred,  and  equally  guarded  against 
encroachment  from  each  other. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  67 

It  has  not  been  my  purpose  to  comment  at 
large  upon  these  principles  in  our  Constitution, 
or  to  gather  up  the  numerous  demonstrations 
of  them  which  our  early  history  affords.  My 
chief  object  in  this  and  the  former  letter  was 
to  show  that  the  States  and  people  of  the 
United  States  have  contracted  obligations,  by 
the  compact  of  the  Constitution,  which  are 
totally  irreconcilable  with  the  asserted  right  of 
secession  ;  that,  with  the  impediment  of  this 
right,  the  harmonious  and  even  the  most  indis 
pensable  performance  of  the  functions  of  our 
Government  would  become  impossible,  and 
that  the  foundation  of  the  right,  as  asserted  by 
its  advocates,  has  no  support  in  the  views  en 
tertained  by  the  founders,  or  in  the  institutes 
of  national  law. 


tr'J    <      t 

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68  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 


LETTER  V. 

REVOLUTION. 

OCTOBER,  1863. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  pretence  set  up  by 
the  movers  of  this  great  disorder  in  the  coun 
try,  their  scheme  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
an  attempt  to  subvert  the  Government  by  a 
revolution.  It  suited  their  purpose  to  claim  it 
as  the  exercise  of  a  peaceful  right  of  secession. 

We  perceive  many  obvious  motives  of  policy 
to  suggest  to  them  this  expedient.  If  they 
could  persuade  the  country  that  the  States 
were  merely  asserting  a  right  which  belonged 
to  them  as  members  of  the  Union,  they  would, 
to  the  extent  of  that  persuasion,  be  able  to  con 
front  the  Government  with  the  charge  of  deny 
ing  to  them  their  admitted  privileges  under  the 
Constitution.  Whether  wise  or  not  in  seced 
ing  from  the  Union,  would  be  a  question  upon 
which  people  might  differ ;  but  the  right  would 
not  be  controverted.  If  they  could  impress 
the  world  with  this  opinion,  then  it  would  fol- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  69 

low  that  to  resist  them  would  be  adjudged  by 
the  world  to  be  a  simple  and  inexcusable  act  of 
aggression.  The  Government  would  be  re 
garded  as  the  assailant,  and  they  would  be  the 
injured  party.  They  might,  with  this  advan 
tage,  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  mankind  as  a 
people  oppressed  by  unlawful  force,  and  assume 
the  part  of  patriots  contending  for  their  dearest 
rights.  They  would  present  themselves  to  the 
tribunal  of  public  judgment  as  legitimate,  inde 
pendent  States,  having  a  claim,  by  the  law  of 
nations,  to  immediate  recognition  by  all  other 
Powers  ;  not  States  struggling  in  the  throes  of 
revolution  to  make  themselves  free,  but  States 
free  in  their  antecedent  life,  and  now,  by  virtue 
of  the  common  fundamental  law,  free  from  all 
alliance  with  their  late  associates,  self-controlling 
and  in  full  organization  as  nations  from  the 
moment  they  severed  their  connection  with  the 
Union.  In  such  an  aspect  of  their  case,  the 
law  which  controls  the  policy  of  nations,  on 
the  question  of  recognizing  a  people  who  revolt 
against  their  rulers,  would  have  no  application. 
The  question  would  not  arise,  "  Are  these  peo 
ple  able  to  detach  themselves  from  the  Govern 
ment  that  ruled  them,  and  to  maintain  their 
attempted  nationality  by  their  own  strength  ?  " 


70  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

but  it  would  be,  with  all  the  outside  world, 
"  What  right  have  we  to  refuse  to  acknowledge 
the  existence  of  a  body  politic  which,  by  the 
organic  law  of  the  Confederacy  to  which  it  was 
once  attached,  has  become  an  independent  na 
tion,  through  the  appointed  form  of  a  declara 
tion  of  its  own  will  to  be  so  ?  "  The  admission 
of  this  principle  annuls  the  whole  law  of  trea 
son  in  respect  to  the  retiring  State.  It  is  no 
longer  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  common 
Government.  Its  people  owe  no  allegiance  to 
that  Government ;  they  have,  in  a  moment, 
become  aliens.  If  war  be  made  upon  them,  it 
is  a  war  of  established  belligerents ;  they  are 
alien  enemies  to  each  other  ;  and  the  party  that 
begins  the  war  must  find  its  justification  in  the 
ordinary  code  of  nations  applicable  to  the  dis 
putes  between  foreign  Powers.  The  mere  act 
of  separation,  being  in  pursuance  of  an  actual 
right,  is  no  just  cause  for  war.  The  retiring 
party  has  committed  no  offence.  All  he  asks 
is,  "Let  us  alone."  This  was  the  convenient 
theory  upon  which  the  fomenters  of  this  com 
motion  ostensibly  commenced  their  operations. 
According  to  this  theory  there  could  be  no 
rebellion,  and,  of  course,  no  revolution.  The 
Governments  of  the  States  and  of  the  Union 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  71 

were  only  developing  their  future  in  the  due 
process  of  the  normal  law  of  their  construc 
tion  ;  falling  to  pieces,  it  is  true,  but  falling  to 
pieces  in  pursuance  of  the  design  and  in  the 
manner  prescribed  by  the  authors  of  the  Con 
stitution. 

This  is  the  rationale  of  their  action,  as  ex 
plained  in  the  official  expositions  of  the  gov 
ernment  set  up  in  the  revolting  States,  and 
which  is  urged,  with  eager  reiteration,  upon 
the  cabinets  of  Europe.  As  yet  they  have 
met  no  acknowledgment  of  their  claim.  The 
cabinets  persist  in  regarding  the  war  as  rebel 
lion  and  its  aim  revolution.  Foreign  Powers, 
therefore,  we  may  infer,  do  not  accept  the  doc 
trine  of  secession.  It  is  true,  some  foreign 
statesmen,  who  are  well-wishers  to  the  downfall 
of  the  great  American  Republic,  and  who 
delight  to  encourage  any  plot  which  may  com 
pass  so  happy  an  end,  give,  now  and  then,  a 
stimulating  hint  of  their  favorable  conviction 
on  this  point ;  but  no  nation  has  yet  been  so 
hardy  as  to  make  it  a  ground  for  interference 
in  our  quarrel.  They,  one  and  all,  subject  the 
question  of  intervention  to  the  test  afforded  by 
national  law  and  usage  as  applied  to  the  case 
of  revolting  fractions  of  a  State. 


72  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

There  being  no  right  of  secession,  as  I  have 
demonstrated  in  my  last  two  letters,  the  whole 
movement  to  sever  the  Union  is  simply  an 
enterprise  of  revolution.  No  proclamation  of 
a  more  lawful  foundation  for  it,  no  pretension 
of  a  different  purpose  contemplated  by  its 
leaders,  no  protestation  of  innocence  of  trea 
sonable  design,  by  the  thousands  who  have 
taken  up  arms,  or  of  the  multitudes  of  men 
and  women  who  afford  material  aid  and  com 
fort  to  the  movement,  or  encourage  it  by  their 
sympathy,  can  alter  its  nature.  The  object 
aimed  at  is  revolution,  and  the  means  are 
rebellion.  The  champions  of  the  cause  are 
rebels.  If  the  rebellion  be  without  such  justi 
fication  as  the  moral  law  sanctions,  then  it  is 
one  of  the  blackest  of  crimes  ;  the  rebels  are 
traitors,  and  they  justly  incur  the  penalty  of 
treason.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  there  be  such 
justification  for  an  effort  to  subvert  the  Gov 
ernment  as  is  recognized  in  the  moral  code  of 
the  most  enlightened  nations,  the  rebellion  is 
without  guilt,  and  the  rebel,  notwithstanding 
the  offence  which  the  law  may  impute  to  him, 
is  untainted  by  the  crime  of  a  traitor.  It  is 
the  Government,  in  that  case,  that  betrays,  and 
the  citizen  lawfully  resists. 


'MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  73 

This  is  a  brief  summary  or  outline  of  the 
ethics  of  rebellion,  as  expounded  by  the  most 
liberal  jurists  of  this  age,  and  as  universally 
accepted  in  our  country.  There  is  no  right  we 
are  less  disposed  to  deny  than  that  of  revolu 
tion.  It  is  an  instinct  of  American  society  to 
sympathize  with  the  revolt  of  a  people  against 
their  rulers.  We  are  perhaps  too  apt  to  do  so 
from  an  a  priori  presumption  that  every  gov 
ernment  oppresses  somebody,  and  that  people 
never  revolt  without  good  cause.  There  is  a 
popular  attraction  in  the  idea  of  fighting  for 
"  our  rights,"  —  a  phrase  often  more  alluring 
to  a  love  of  adventure  than  susceptible  of  defi 
nition.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  Southern 
armies  are  filled  by  the  influence  of  this  senti 
ment.  Rash  and  thoughtless  young  men,  who 
have  never  paused  a  moment  to  inquire  into 
the  merits  to  the  cause,  have  rushed  into  rebel 
lion  simply  because  it  was  rebellion.  Men  of 
riper  years  have  thrown  themselves  into  it,  with 
that  traditionary  idea  that  revolution  itself 
is  a  glorious  incident,  and  that  it  is  heroic  to 
sustain  it.  I  think  this  trait  of  our  national 
character  will  disclose  the  secret  of  much  of 
that  enthusiasm  which  has  spread  over  the 
South  and  brought  the  rebellion  into  favor  with 


74  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

many  worthy  men  who,  to  this  day,  are  unable 
to  give  an  intelligible  account  of  the  motives 
which  seduced  them  into  the  conflict.  I  think 
it  will  explain  the  phenomena  of  epauletted 
bishops  and  priests  in  jackboots,  deserting  their 
vineyards  to  swagger  in  the  camp.  I  think  it 
will  satisfactorily  solve  the  riddle  of  the  re 
markable  virulence  with  which  the  women  on 
that  side  scream  out  their  joy  at  every  wound 
that  is  inflicted  upon  their  country.  Rebellion 
has  become  the  fashion  in  that  gentle  world, 
and,  like  another  fashion  there,  is  utterly  heed 
less  of  the  uncleanness  into  which  it  dips  its 
skirts. 

Passing  by  these  illusions  or  mere  stimulants 
of  temper  which  have  driven  so  many  to  the 
compromise  of  their  loyalty,  I  propose  to  ex 
plore  the  real  motives,  as  far  as  they  are 
attainable,  that  have  led  men  of  influence  and 
capacity  to  attempt  so  bold  and  desperate  an 
enterprise  as  the  overthrow  of  the  Govern 
ment. 

In  looking  for  these  motives,  we  should  expect 
to  find  either,  on  the  one  side,  some  oppressive 
feature  in  our  Constitution  or  some  inveterate 
and  incurable  evil  in  its  administration  ;  or,  on 
the  other,  some  mistaken  conception  of  injury 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  75 

resulting  from  Government,  some  intolerable 
anomaly  of  social  life  only  imagined  curable 
by  separation  ;  or,  in  the  absence  of  induce 
ments  as  honest  as  these,  some  depravity  of 
personal  ambition  daring  enough  to  meditate 
the  destruction  of  the  State  in  order  to  com 
pass  its  ends.  I  remark,  in  clearing  the  way 
for  this  inquiry,  that  the  first  man  is  yet  to  be 
found,  North  or  South,  who,  in  the  way  of 
excuse  for  rebellion,  has  alleged  that  he  has 
suffered  wrong  from  a  solitary  act  of  this  Gov 
ernment.  No  man  has  been  so  bold  as  to  affirm 
that  there  is  a  single  statute  in  the  national 
code,  a  single  decree  of  the  Executive ;  that 
there  is  any  treaty,  or  any  judicial  decision  of 
the  national  judicature,  which  has  ever  given 
offence  to  a  Southern  citizen  or  afforded  any 
fair  ground  of  complaint  to  a  Southern  State, 
at  the  date  at  which  this  rebellion  was  inaugu 
rated.  It  does  not  abate  the  truth  of  this 
assertion  to  say  that  there  have  been,  in  the 
seventy  years'  experience  of  the  Union,  various 
questions  of  policy  broached  and  determined, 
upon  which  political  parties  have  differed  ;  that 
laws  have  been  passed,  treaties  made  and  Ex 
ecutive  proceedings  adopted,  which  roused  the 
opposition  of  parties,  both  in  the  North  and  the 


76  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

South.  These  are  but  the  regular  and  antici 
pated  incidents  of  all  popular  government,  and, 
indeed,  manifest  the  healthful  freedom  of  opin 
ion  by  which  alone  all  good  governments  are 
preserved.  These  divisions  of  opinion  were 
general,  pervading  the  whole  country,  and  dis 
tinctive  of  no  section.  What  I  mean  to  affirm 
is,  that  no  legislation  ever  transcended  the  nat 
ural  and  proper  limits  prescribed  to  the  legiti 
mate  action  of  the  Government  in  determining 
and  shaping  the  public  policy ;  that  nothing 
has  been  done  buf  in  accordance  with  the 
power  given  by  the  Constitution,  and  what  the 
Constitution  contemplated  as  the  appropriate 
office  of  legislation.  There  were  tariffs  en 
acted,  there  were  laws  prohibiting  and  laws 
allowing  slavery  in  the  Territories,  internal 
improvement  and  national-bank  laws,  upon  all 
of  which  there  were  various  dissenting  opin 
ions  and  frequent  political  conflict ;  but  all  this 
legislation  was  founded  upon  precedent  estab 
lished  in  the  earliest  age  of  the  Government 
and  continued  to  the  latest ;  and,  what  is  of 
some  significance  in  this  view,  these  laws  were 
passed  during  the  long  period  in  which  the 
Government  was  mainly  directed  under  the 
control  of  Southern  votes.  No  sensible  states- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  11 

man  could  find  in  such  legislation  an  honest 
ground  for  rebellion.  They  were  acts  of 
administration,  changeable  at  the  will  of  the 
people.  It  would  be  as  absurd  as  wicked  to 
make  them  the  pretext  for  overthrowing  the 
Government. 

Indeed  we  have  the  testimony  of  the  rebels 
themselves  that  the  structure  of  the  Govern 
ment  afforded  them  no  cause  of  complaint ;  for 
they  immediately  adopted  the  same  Constitu 
tion,  with  some  few  modifications,  as  the  frame 
work  of  their  own  Confederacy.  Amongst 
these  modifications  they  did  not  even  incorpo 
rate  that  which  might  be  regarded  as  descrip 
tive  of  the  peculiar  demand  of  the  revolution, 
—  an  express  affirmation  of  the  right  of  seces 
sion.  If  we  may  infer  anything  from  their 
reticence  on  this  point,  it  is  that  they  were  not 
willing  to  expose  their  own  Confederacy  to  the 
blows  of  the  same  weapon  which  they  found 
had  such  facile  power  to  destroy  that  they 
were  casting  off.  They,  at  least,  were  willing 
to  leave  an  expressed  right  of  secession  open  to 
future  advisement,  and  allow  the  question,  in 
the  mean  time,  to  float  upon  the  varying  tide 
of  construction.  I  venture  to  prophesy  that  as 
their  experience  grows  older,  and  their  sover- 


78  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

eign  harmonies  are  more  and  more  tested,  they 
will  be  less  and  less  inclined  to  honor  the  doc 
trine  with  a  clause  in  their  constitution.  Cer 
tainly  we  may  infer  from  this  omission  that 
the  failure  of  our  Constitution  to  recognize  this 
right  does  not  present  the  gravamen  for  which 
they  have  plunged  the  country  into  rebellion. 
I  would  not  charge  that  numerous  body  of  gen 
tlemen  —  whom  I  have  referred  to  in  a  former 
letter  as  the  long  and  persistent  denouncers  of 
secession  as  treason  —  with  a  vagary  so  extrav 
agant  as  that.  As  the  matter  stands  now,  it 
is  evident  that  the  rebel  Convention  at  Mont 
gomery  were  not  fully  prepared  to  vindicate 
their  zeal  in  their  professed  faith,  by  testifying 
to  it  in  their  works  when  the  opportunity  for 
the  first  time  was  presented  to  them. 

Notwithstanding  these  few  alterations,  the 
Government  rejected  and  the  Government 
adopted  are  so  entirely  the  same  in  all  their 
leading  features  and  minor  details,  and  espe 
cially  so  identical  in  their  capacities  for  good 
or  evil  administration,  that  it  is  very  clear  this 
revolution  was  not  inaugurated  to  get  rid  of 
any  existing  grievance  or  tyrannical  authority 
resulting  from  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  79 

We  are  left,  then,  to  seek  in  the  administra 
tion  of  the  Government,  the  source  of  the  dif 
ferences  which,  it  is  supposed,  could  only  be 
satisfactorily  adjusted  by  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union. 

Upon  this  point  I  might  remark,  in  passing, 
that  it  would  take  a  very  strong  case  of  wrongs 
inflicted  by  the  administration  of  a  Government 

—  whose  administration  is  changeable  at  brief 
periods  by  the  act  of  the  people  themselves,  and 
always  under  the  control  of  popular  represen 
tation  in  which  the  whole  nation  has  a  voice, 

—  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  a  very  strong 
case  of  continued  and  persevering  oppression, 
through  such  an  administration,  to  justify  a  re 
sort  to  the  terrible  process  of  relief  found  in 
civil  war. 

When  we  ask  the  question,  "  Has  the  South 
been  impelled  to  adopt  this  extreme  remedy 
of  revolution,  by  the  galling  tyranny  practised 
upon  it  through  years  of  unmitigated  suffering 
by  the  oppressive  temper  of  the  majority,  ex 
hibited  in  a  constant  course  of  hostile  admin 
istration?"  we  have  an  answer  in  the  fact, 
that  from  the  4th  of  March,  1789,  until  the 
4th  of  March,  1861,  the  administration  of  pub 
lic  affairs  has  been  almost  wholly  in  Southern 
hands. 


80  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

We  have  had,   during   that  period,   fifteen 
Presidents,  of  which  nine  were  native  South 
ern  men,  three  natives  of  New  England,  two 
of  New  York,  and  one  of  Pennsylvania  ;  of 
those  which  were   not   natives   of  the   Slave 
States   three  were   Democrats,  of  whom  the 
South  was  wont  to  boast  as  "  Northern  men 
with  Southern  principles,"  and  were  distinctly 
chosen  and  elected  by  Southern  influence ;  of 
the  remaining  three  two  were  Whigs,  distin 
guished  for  their  equitable  administration  and 
irreproachable  performance  of  their  duty,  in 
which  they  received  the  efficient  support  of 
the  whole  Whig  party  of  the  South.     The  only 
President,  in  all  that  space  of  seventy-two  years, 
who  might  be  plausibly  charged  with  a  Northern 
bias  in  his  administration  was  the  elder  Adams, 
the  companion  of  Washington,  and  the  incum 
bent  of  the  presidential  office  for  but  one  term, 
at  the  close  of  the  last  century.     It  may  be 
also  remarked,  that  from  the  4th  of  March, 
1801,  when  it  may  be  said  that  parties  be 
came  distinctively  organized,  down  to  the  4th 
of  March,  1861,  a  period  of  sixty  years,  the 
Government  was    administered    by   Southern 
Presidents  for  forty-one  years,  and  by  Presi 
dents  born  in  the  Free  States  nineteen  years. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  81 

During  the  whole  of  this  latter  period  of  sixty 
years  the  representation  in  both  Houses  of 
Congress  is  to  be  noted  for  a  preponderance 
of  Southern  influence  in  the  control  of  the 
policy  of  Government,  maintained,  in  part, 
through  the  numerical  strength  of  the  South 
ern  vote,  and,  still  more  decisively,  by  the  party 
predilections  of  the  Democratic  members. 

It  is  vain,  therefore,  in  the  view  of  these  L 
facts,  to  suppose  that  this  rebellion  can  pre 
tend  to  any  justifiable  cause  arising  out  of  the 
ordinary,  legitimate,  and  habitual  administra 
tion  of  the  Government. 

Where,  then,  shall  we  seek  for  that  bead- 
roll  of  wrongs  which  the  enlightened  justice  of 
mankind  in  this  age  demands  from  every  peo 
ple  who  meditate  a  recourse  to  arms  against 

A  O 

established  authority  ?  What  is  the  provoca 
tion  which  may  be  rightfully  pleaded  in  the 
great  forum  of  national  judgment,  still  more, 
before  the  awful  tribunal  of  Heaven,  for  this 
dreadful  assault  upon  the  social  order,  yea, 
upon  the  very  existence  of  the  grandest  and 
most  prosperous  of  Commonwealths  ? 

Even  to  this  day  we  have  seen  no  clear  and   t- 
intelligible  proclamation   of  the    real    motives 
which   impelled    this    outbreak.      Speculation, 


82  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

both  here  and  in  Europe,  gropes  blindly 
through  a  maze  of  conjectures  to  make  a 
plausible  theory  for  this  extraordinary  phe 
nomenon.  Prizes  are  offered  for  essays  to 
explain  it.  The  gravest  and  the  lightest  rea 
sons  are  assigned  to  it.  It  is  the  terrible 
plague  spot  of  slavery ;  it  is  the  trivial  dis 
comfort  of  incompatible  temper ;  it  is  com 
mercial  tariffs ;  navigation  laws  ;  unequal  dis 
tribution  of  patronage  ;  disappointed  ambition  ; 
provincial  antipathies ;  "  quot  homines  tot  sen- 
tentice."  Why  is  there  not  some  solemn  and 
earnest  State  paper  put  forth,  in  "decent  re 
spect  for  the  opinions  of  mankind,"  which  shall 
solve  these  doubts  ?  We  have  had  more  than 
one  ostentatious  attempt  of  this  kind,  but  they 
all  fail  to  rise  to  the  dignity  of  an  excuse.  They 
do  not  agree  with  each  other.  They  present 
no  consistent  specific  statement  of  injuries  in 
flicted  upon  the  South  by  the  Government,  to 
which  the  whole  people  in  revolt  can  refer  as 
their  defence  for  taking  up  arms,  or  which  sen 
sible  men  might  not  be  ashamed  to  avow  as  a 
justifiable  motive  for  revolution. 

We  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  the  inauguration 
of  a  rebellion  of  such  magnitude  as  this,  with 
our  own  estimate  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  ex- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  83 

cuse  for  it,  and  our  previous  knowledge  of  the 
respectability,  both  in  character  and  intelligence, 
of  many  of  the  individuals  concerned  in  getting 
it  up.  We  make  every  allowance  for  pride  and 
prejudice,  for  ambition,  for  excitability  of  tem 
per,  for  extravagance  of  political  theory,  and  all 
the  other  influences  which  may  disturb  an  honest 
judgment,  but  there  still  remains  the  problem, 
—  Why  did  men  of  ordinary  ability  and  fore 
thought,  to  say  nothing  of  men  of  larger  scope, 
enter  upon  an  adventure  of  such  fearful  import 
as  this  ?  The  question  has  often  been  asked, 
Have  they  presented  any  grievance  which  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union  would  remove ;  in  fact, 
not  make  worse  ?  The  inadequacy  of  the  rea 
sons  given  for  the  instalment  of  this  momentous 
struggle  would  compel  us  to  believe,  if  we  did 
not,  from  our  own  observation  of  events,  know 
it  before,  that  the  ostensible  causes  are  not  the 
real  ones,  and  that  we  must  seek  elsewhere  for 
the  true  exposition  of  the  movement. 

We  feel  no  surprise  at  the  rapid  spread  of 
the  rebellion  through  the  South,  after  it  was 
once  set  on  foot.  However  much  we  may  la 
ment  the  width  and  tenacity  of  its  grasp,  and 
the  fatal  aberration  into  which  it  has  drawn 
many  estimable  persons,  amongst  whom  we 


84  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

recognize  friends  we  shall  ever  think  of  with 
regret,  we  cannot  but  regard  their  defection  as 
the  natural  sequence  of  the  great  primal  wrong 
which   brought  them  into  such  a  temptation, 
and  we  shall  never  abandon  the  hope  that  the 
same  facility  of  yielding  which   carried   them 
astray,  will  be  equally  apt,  when  the  occasion 
may  serve,  to  bring  them  back.    I  have  hinted, 
in  a  former  letter,  at  the  category  in  which 
they  are  placed.     I  know  that  it  is  the  nature 
of  all  rebellion  to  be  constantly  making  a  new 
case  for  its  reinforcement ;  and  it  scarcely  fails 
to  happen,  that  the  multitudes  who  are  swept 
into  its  train  are  unable  to  resist  the  motives 
they  find  for  complicity  presented  to  them  in 
the  disorders  which   the  violence  of  war,  the 
emergencies  of  State,  and  the  inevitable  inva 
sions  of  personal    comfort    and   private    right 
bring  upon  themselves  or  the  communities  in 
which  they  live.     As  passion  rises  reason  sub 
sides,  and  the  minds  of  excitable  men  become 
all  aglow  with  the  indignation  of  present  griefs. 
It  is  enough  for  them  that  injuries  —  which  a 
calm  reflection  would  show  them   to   be   the 
necessary   and    natural    concomitants    of  civil 
commotion,  and  for  which,  therefore,  the  au 
thors  of  the  commotion  themselves  are  respon- 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  85 

sible  —  are  perpetrated  within  their  view ;  it  is 
enough  for  them  that  the  Government,  whilst 
reeling  under  the  blows  of  the  rebellion,  resorts 
to  its  highest  prerogative  of  defence,  and  wields 
an  unaccustomed  power  against  the  treason  that 
strikes  at  its  life  ;  they  are  filled  with  resent 
ment  at  the  present  calamity,  and  at  the  use 
of  force  to  conquer  revolt,  and  do  not  pause  to 
consider  the  awful  crime  which  hurls  these  dis 
asters  upon  society,  nor  the  sacred  duty  which 
rebellion  casts  upon  the  Government  to  pre 
serve  itself  from  destruction.  Man  grows  self 
ish  when  terrors  surround  him,  and  the  first 
instinct,  even  of  the  brave,  is  to  fly  to  the  pro 
tection  of  their  friends  before  they  will  lift  an 
arm  for  their  country.  This  is  natural  to  the 
common  herd  of  mankind.  It  is  only  from 
the  truly  heroic,  from  those  who  possess  that 
rare  wisdom  which  discerns  the  path  of  duty 
with  vision  undisturbed  by  passion  or  affec 
tion,  and  who  have  the  courage  to  follow  it,  we 
may  expect  an  example  of  that  noblest  patriot 
ism  which  accounts  our  country  dearer  than 
all  other  human  blessings,  and  its  service 
only  subordinate  to  that  we  owe  our  Creator. 
We  are  not  surprised,  therefore,  that  the 
thoughtless,  the  ignorant,  or  the  impulsive 


86  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

members  of  an  excited  community  lose  sight 
of  the  grandeur  of  a  national  cause  and  become 

o 

the  assertors  and  champions  of  the  meaner  but 
more  intelligible  quarrel  of  the  neighborhood, 
the  district,  or  the  section.  Unhappily  it  is  so 
ordained  that  the  fate  of  empire  does  not  rest  in 
the  hands  of  the  wise,  the  good,  and  the  valiant, 
without  a  counterpoise,  more  or  less  hurtful, 
from  the  foolish,  the  vicious,  and  the  weak. 

It  is  not  from  this  crowd  of  followers  in  the 
track  of  revolution  that  we  may  hope  to  pro 
cure  an  intelligible  exposition  of  its  origin  or 
its  aims.  They  can  only  give  us  their  own 
personal  aggravations,  or,  at  best,  the  delusions 
which  have  kindled  their  enthusiasm  and  bewil 
dered  their  reason.  But  from  those  who  first 
conceived  the  design  and  gave  it  headway,  and 
who  still  assume  to  shape  and  direct  its  prog 
ress,  we  have  to  exact  a  more  rigorous  respon 
sibility,  and  hold  them  accountable  to  public 
judgment,  if  they  can  offer  no  adequate  and 
upright  justification  for  the  desolation  they 
have  cast  into  the  bosom  of  the  country,  and 
for  the  terrible  issues  of  the  conflict.  They 
have  not  yet  done  so.  That  their  enterprise 
admits  of  no  such  defence  I  shall  endeavor  to 
show  in  the  further  prosecution  of  this  inquiry. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  87 


LETTER  VI. 

i 

REVOLUTION. 

OCTOBER,  1863. 

THE  aspiration  of  Southern  ambition,  which 
has  reached  to  the  climax  of  rebellion,  was, 
not  the  growth  of  a  month  or  a  year.  Those 
who  have  watched  the  course  of  public  events, 
and  noted  the  development  of  opinion  in  the 
South  for  years  past,  have  seen  many  signs 
of  the  coming  peril ;  and,  if  the  country 
was  not  prepared  for  it,  it  was  not  for  want 
of  an  occasional  warning.  Everybody  knew 
there  were  restless  spirits  in  the  South  who 
would  rejoice  in  the  opportunity  to  destroy  the 
Union,  and  that  these  were  endeavoring  to 
create  a  sectional  sentiment  that  might  favor 
the  accomplishment  of  their  wish.  But  the 
common  faith  of  the  country  in  the  patriotism 
of  the  people  of  the  South,  and  the  profound 
conviction  of  the  whole  North,  and  we  may 
say  also  of  the  larger  part  of  the  Southern  com 
munities,  that  no  motive  existed  which  could 


88  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

possibly  stir  up  the  people  of  any  State  to  the 
mad  enterprise  of  assailing  the  integrity  of  the 
Union,  dispelled  every  apprehension  on  this 
score.  The  public  generally  regarded  the 
danger  as  a  chimera.  Even  the  Government, 
which  ought  to  have  been  distrustful  enough 
to  put  itself  on  guard,  seemed  to  be  utterly  un 
conscious  of  the  gathering  trouble.  Never  was 
a  country  taken  so  much  at  unawares. 

The  year  1860  was  one  of  great  prosperity. 
The  nation  exhibited  something  more  than  its 
customary  light-heartedness,  and  had  risen  into 
a  tone  of  hilarity  from  the  peculiar  excitements 
of  the  year.  The  spring  was  occupied  with 
celebrations  of  the  advent  of  the  Japanese  Em 
bassy,  which  signalized  the  enlargement  of  our 
commerce  with  the  East,  and  autumn  was  filled 
with  pageants  to  welcome  the  heir  of  the  Brit 
ish  throne,  whose  visit  was  regarded  as  an 
event  of  national  congratulation  that  promised 
long  peace  and  happy  fellowship  with  the 
world,  — a  token  of  new  strength  and  greater 
influence  to  the  Republic.  It  was  a  year  dis 
tinguished  by  public  demonstrations  of  faith 
and  hope  in  the  future  destiny  of  the  country. 
Few  persons  were  willing  to  believe,  or  allowed 
themselves  to  think,  that,  whilst  we  were  thus 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  89 

increasing  the  popularity  of  the  nation  abroad, 
and  inaugurating  an  era  of  remarkable  promise 
to  the  advantage  of  our  foreign  and  domestic 
interests,  there  was  any  considerable  party 
amongst  us  who  could  harbor  the  parricidal 
design  of  crushing  these  brilliant  hopes  in  the 
destruction  of  the  country  itself,  or  that  the 
band  of  political  agitators,  to  whom  the  public 
was  accustomed  to  impute  such  a  design,  could 
so  infatuate  their  followers  as  to  prevail  with 
them  to  attempt  it.  It  was  in  this  state  of 
confident  security,  and  in  the  very  midst  of 
these  peaceful  manifestations,  that  the  storm 
broke  upon  the  country. 

Notwithstanding  this  dissonance  between  the 
tone  of  public  feeling  at  that  time,  and  the  ter 
rific  incident  which  grated  upon  it  with  such 
inopportune  discord,  the  rebellion  came  as  a 
predestined  feat.  The  year,  the  month,  almost 
the  week  of  its  explosion,  had  been  determined 
in  councils  held  long  before,  and  the  plot  broke 
into  action  at  its  appointed  time,  to  surprise 
and  discomfit,  with  a  sudden  shock,  the  peace 
ful  temper  of  the  Government  and  its  friends. 

It  was  preordained  that  the  Presidential 
Election  of  1860  should  supply  the  occasion 
and  the  day,  though  it  did  not  supply  the  mo- 


90  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

live  for  this  wicked  attempt  against  the  life  of 
the  nation. 

Let  us  endeavor  to  extract  from  the  history 
of  the  times,  and  from  our  own  knowledge  of 
the  course  of  events,  what  we  can  find  to  ex 
plain  the  inducements  that  moved  the  actors  in 
this  terrible  tragedy. 

It  has  grown  to  be  an  almost  universally  ac 
cepted  fact,  on  the  northern  side  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line,  that  this  rebellion  owes  its  origin 
simply  to  a  sense  of  danger  to  the  institution  of 
slavery  aroused  in  the  Southern  mind  by  the 
political  agitations  of  the  question  of  its  value, 
which  have  engrossed  so  much  of  the  public 
attention  during  the  last  thirty  years ;  and  that, 
to  avert  this  danger,  the  South  had  resolved 
upon  separation  from  the  North. 

I  think  this  view  of  the  origin  of  our  troubles 
much  too  narrow.  Slavery,  of  itself  and  for 
itself,  is  not  the  cause  of  the  rebellion.  I  do 
not  believe  that  there  was  one  intelligent,  lead 
ing,  and  thinking  man  in  the  South,  when 
this  rebellion  broke  out,  who  imagined  that 
slavery  was  in  any  kind  of  danger  either  from 
the  action  of  the  National  Government  or  the 
State  Governments ;  nor  that  it  could  be  suc 
cessfully  assailed  by  the  hostility  that  was  ex- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  91 

hibited  against  it  in  the  public  or  private  opin 
ion  of  Northern  society.  I  think  that  Southern 
statesmen  were  and  are  perfectly  convinced 
that  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  em 
bracing  both  National  and  State  organizations, 
afforded  an  impregnable  security  to  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery  which  no  power  on  this  con 
tinent,  in  its  lawful  course  of  administration, 
could  disturb :  and,  moreover,  that  the  guar 
antees  which  these  organizations  combined  offer 
to  that  institution  are  not  only  entirely  ade 
quate  to  its  protection,  but  are  such  as  no  gov 
ernment  ever  before  supplied,  and  such,  also, 
as  no  government,  of  the  same  scope  of  ju 
risdiction  and  power,  would  ever  again  agree 
to  make.  It  is  the  merest  sham  and  make- 
believe  for  any  Southern  man  to  pretend  that 
the  institution  of  slavery  was  ever  brought  into 
peril  before  this  rebellion  exposed  it  to  the  dan 
gers  that  now  surround  it.  I  can  hardly  sup 
pose  that  any  man  of  sense  in  the  South  could 
believe  otherwise  than  that  a  war,  once  pro 
voked  between  the  States,  would  be  the  only 
effective  agency  which  could  destroy  or  impair 
it  against  the  will  and  without  the  cooperation 
of  the  Slave  States  themselves. 

That  the  slave  interest  has  been  domineer- 


92  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

ing  and  aggressive  in  its  endeavor  to  control 
the  administration  of  the  public  affairs  of  the 
Union,  is  a  fact  of  common  observation  ;  and 
that  it  has  been  exceedingly  reluctant  to  part 
with  this  power  of  control,  as  the  gradually 
increasing  strength  of  its  antagonist  element  in 
the  nation  made  it  apparent  that  it  must  soon 
do,  is  equally  true.  If  we  add  to  these  consid 
erations  the  influence  of  slavery  upon  the  char 
acter,  habits,  and  social  life  of  the  ruling  class 
of  Southern  citizens,  we  may  perceive  the  de 
gree  and  extent  in  which  it  may  be  regarded 
as  the  causa  causans  of  the  rebellion,  in  the 
minds  of  certain  ambitious  men  who  assumed 
to  direct  Southern  opinion,  and  who,  acting  in 
concert,  plotted  and  executed  this  great  act  of 
treason. 

It  is,  at  the  same  time,  true  that  slavery  may 
be  reckoned  as  the  immediate  cause  of  the  war, 
in  the  estimate  of  a  very  considerable  portion 
of  the  Southern  people.  Danger  to  the  security 
of  slave  property  furnished  a  taking  watchword 
to  a  large  and  influential  class  of  these.  The 
phantom  of  negro  equality,  which  haunts  the 
imagination  of  the  lower  stratum  of  Southern 

o 

society,  furnished  another  not  less  potent  for 
mischief.     These  topics  were  adroitly  handled 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  93 

to  excite  the  passions  and  alarm  the  fears  of 
both  the  upper  and  under  sections  of  these 
impressible  communities,  and  were  found  very 
effective  in  mustering  men  into  the  ranks  of 
revolt.  They  were  discussed  as  popular  mo 
tives  to  rebellion,  and  used  to  give  it  a 
plausible  justification.  They  supplied  a  ready 
argument  adapted  to  the  prejudice  or  mental 
capacity  of  the  several  parties  to  whom  it  was 
addressed,  and  they  especially  served  to  famil 
iarize  the  people  with  the  thought  of  breaking 
up  the  Union. 

These  agitations  of  the  slave  question  had 
something  of  the  same  effect  upon  portions  of 
the  people  of  the  North ;  for  the  aversion  to 
the  Union  was  not  alone  harbored  in  the 
South.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  extreme 
opinions  on  this  subject,  preached  and  written 
by  a  sect  in  New  England,  had  a  most  perni 
cious  influence  in  extending  the  thought  of 
dissolution  through  the  South.  There  was  an 
equal  fanaticism  on  both  sides,  quite  as  evident 
in  favor  of  slavery  in  one  section  as  against  it 
in  the  other.  Secessionists  and  abolitionists, 
in  the  ultra  phases  of  their  respective  demands, 
were  in  full  accord  as  to  the  ultimate  remedy 
of  the  grievances  they  imagined  themselves  to 


94  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

suffer.  It  was  curious  to  see  how,  in  ascending 
the  gamut  of  their  opposite  extravagances,  the 
two  parties  kept  pace  with  each  other  on  the 
scale,  of  which  the  highest  note  on  each  side 
was  disunion.  Both  North  and  South  were,  at 
the  beginning,  in  harmony  in  admitting  slavery 
to  be  a  social  evil  which  was  to  be  consider 
ately  dealt  with  and  abandoned  when  that  could 
be  done  without  injury  to  existing  interests. 
From  this  point  Southern  enthusiasts  diverged 
in  one  direction,  Northern  in  another.  With 
one,  slavery  rose  to  be  asserted  successively  as 
a  harmless  utility,  as  a  blessing,  a  divine  insti 
tution,  and,  finally,  as  "  the  corner-stone  re 
jected  by  the  builders,"  upon  which  a  new 
dynasty  was  to  be  constructed,  and  our  old 
cherished  Union  to  be  dashed  into  fragments. 
With  the  other,  slavery,  passing  through  equal 
grades,  was  declared  to  be  a  disgrace ;  a  great 
national  sin ;  a  special  curse  of  Heaven ;  and, 
at  last,  a  stigma  that  made  the  Union  "  a  cove 
nant  of  hell,"  and  which,  therefore,  should  be 
shattered  to  atoms  to  give  place  to  another 
order  of  polity.  The  two  opposite  lines  thus 
converged  in  the  same  point,  —  that  of  dissolu 
tion.  This  is  the  extreme  boundary  to  which 
a  passionate  monomania  conducted  the  agita- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  95 

tions  of  thirty  years  of  the  subject  of  slavery. 
The  irritation  produced  by  this  persevering 
and  angry  reverberation  of  the  question,  from 
side  to  side,  undoubtedly  prepared  the  people 
of  the  South  for  the  explosion  of  1860,  and 
equally  prepared  the  people  of  the  North  for  a 
prompt  resentment  against  it,  and  thus  misled 
the  popular  opinion  on  both  sides  to  regard  the 
slavery  question  as  the  immediate  source  of 
the  attempt  at  revolution.  But  the  contriv 
ers,  the  heads  and  leaders  of  the  scheme,  had 
a  much  deeper  purpose  than  the  removal  of 
any  imagined  danger  to  the  security  of  the  in 
stitution.  They  took  advantage  of  the  com 
mon  sensibility  of  their  people  on  this  subject 
to  aid  them  in  a  design  of  much  wider  import. 
It  is  only  necessary  to  note  the  solicitude 
with  which  Southern  politicians  of  the  last  and 
present  generation  have  contemplated  the  in 
vasion  of  their  supremacy  in  the  Government, 
and  the  importunate  zeal  with  which  they  have 
insisted  upon  preserving  an  equilibrium  be 
tween  Free  and  Slave  States,  —  meaning  by 
that  the  preponderance  of  Southern  influence, 
—  to  be  convinced  that  the  perpetuity  of  their 
control  of  the  Administration  has  been  the  lead 
ing  idea  of  their  policy.  The  threat  of  dis- 


96  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

union  has  been  the  customary  persuasion  by 
which  they  have,  from  time  to  time,  endeav 
ored  to  subdue  the  first  symptoms  of  disaffec 
tion  to  their  ascendency.  This  had  become 
the  familiar  terror  of  every  Presidential  can 
vass  since  the  great  flurry  of  Nullification  in 
1832,  and,  in  fact,  its  frequency  had  made 
it  so  stale,  that  when,  at  last,  the  danger 
was  really  imminent,  the  country"  was  incred 
ulous  of  the  event,  as  much  from  derision  of 
the  threat  as  a  worn-out  trick,  as  from  the 
common  conviction  that  no  cause  had  arisen 
to  provoke  it. 

Looking  at  the  various  pretexts  upon  which, 
as  occasion  prompted,  this  disunion  was  threat 
ened,  —  the  tariff,  the  navigation  laws,  the  dis 
tribution  of  patronage,  the  Texas  question,  the 
admission  of  California,  the  Kansas  organiza 
tion,  the  Territories,  —  all  of  which  have  been 
used  in  turn  by  the  Cotton  States  to  frighten 
the  nation  with  the  danger  of  rupture,  we  have 
in  these  the  most  perspicuous  guide  to  the  true 
motives  of  the  breach  of  1861.  The  fact  was 
then  at  last  demonstrated,  that  the  hour  was  at 
hand  when  other  interests  in  the  country  were 
to  have  a  hearing  and  an  influence,  and  that 
the  majority  of  the  nation  meant  to  govern  it ; 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  97 

that  the  South  must  take  its  due  and  proper 
place  in  the  Union  and  relinquish  its  ambition 
of  undivided  empire.  That  long-feared  and 
long  warded-off  day  had  come,  and  with  it 
came  the  first  real,  unfeigned,  absolute  pur 
pose  of  the  partisan  politicians  of  the  Southern 
States  in  combination,  to  separate  the  South 
from  the  North,  and  to  attempt  to  build  up 
a  power  at  home,  in  which  Southern  politics 
and  Southern  ambition  should  have  undisputed 
sway.  The  Union  was  enjoyed  as  long  as  it 
ministered  to  the  ascendency  of  the  Planting 
States,  but  was  to  be  cast  off  as  soon  as  the 
nation  reached  that  epoch  in  its  progress  at 
which  it  was  able  to  release  itself  from  the 
thraldom  of  sectional  control,  and  to  regulate 
its  policy  in  accordance  with  the  demands  of 
the  general  welfare. 

Never  was  that  selfishness  which  is  the  char 
acteristic  sin  of  sectional  politicians,  more  offen 
sively  demonstrated  than  in  the  alacrity  with 
which  the  prominent  men  of  these  Planting 
States — I  mean  especially  to  designate,  by  this 
term,  that  region  which  is  devoted  to  the  pro 
duction  of  cotton,  rice,  and  sugar  —  combined 
to  destroy  the  unity,  and,  as  they  hoped,  the 
strength,  and  even  the  very  existence,  of  this 


98  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

nation,  at  the  first  moment  when  the  opportu 
nity  promised  them  a  chance  of  success.  Their 
cool  repudiation,  not  only  of  the  obligations  of 
honorable  citizenship,  but  also  of  the  simple  grat 
itude  due  to  a  commonwealth  of  brethren  of  the 
same  family,  which  had  watched  over  them  in 
their  days  of  weakness,  and  nursed  them  into 
the  full  vigor  of  manhood,  and  which  had,  more 
over,  conferred  upon  them  all  the  political  im 
portance  they  had  ever  attained,  —  this  act  will 
stand  forever  prominent  in  the  history  of  this 
sad  time,  as  the  darkest  blot  the  rebellion  will 
leave  upon  the  character  of  its  most  conspic 
uous  contrivers  and  agents.  Think  of  the 
trivial  pretences  and  the  positive  treachery  of 
those  States  purchased,  created,  and  reared  by 
the  Union,  —  Florida,  Louisiana,  Texas,  Arkan 
sas  !  Think  of  the  good  example,  the  good 
faith,  and  the  nice  sense  of  honor  of  those  older 
States  which  persuaded  these  to  strike  at  the 
heart  of  the  beneficent  parent  who  had  given 
them  existence,  protection,  and  a  heritage  of 
matchless  prosperity  !  Think  of  the  obliga 
tions  which  these  States  owe  to  the  Union, 
and  then  inquire  into  the  real  motives  which 
tempted  them  to  bring  down  upon  the  nation 
the  terrible  calamity  of  civil  war ! 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  99 

We  shall  look  in  vain,  as  I  have  before  re 
marked,  for  this  motive  in  any  right  denied  the 
States  by  the  National  Government,  or  any 
privilege  withheld  which  State  or  individual 
citizen  might  lawfully  or  reasonably  demand. 

But,  supposing  there  were  some  wrong  in 
flicted  by  the  Government,  in  the  course  of  its 
administration,  upon  one  or  more  of  the  States, 
and  —  to  put  the  case  of  opposition  upon  its 
strongest  ground  —  supposing  the  right  of  se 
cession  to  be  acknowledged  as  the  lawful  resort 
of  a  State,  certainly  we  may  say,  in  view  of  the 
special  compact  of  the  Constitution,  and  of  the 
plighted  faith  of  the  people  of  every  State  to 
stand  to  and  abide  by  all  the  responsibilities 
and  duties  created  by  the  common  National 
Government,  every  consideration  of  justice,  as 
well  as  of  propriety  and  self-respect,  would  im 
pose  upon  the  complaining  party  the  necessity 
of  making  a  deliberate  and  friendly  appeal  to 
the  rest  of  the  nation  for  redress  through  the 
means  provided  by  law.  How  much  more  im 
perative  is  the  obligation  of  such  appeal  when 
no  right  of  secession  is  contained  in  the  com 
pact,  and  when  the  proceeding,  unless  sanc 
tioned  by  the  general  consent  of  the  nation, 
could  only  be  classed  in  the  category  of  revo- 


100  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

lution  ?  To  make  a  decent  case  of  justification 
for  revolution,  every  tribunal  of  moral  law  or 
enlightened  opinion  would  hold  that,  as  a  pre 
liminary  fact,  that  consent  should  be  asked  and 
refused ;  and,  moreover,  that  the  insurgent 
party  should  be  able  to  show  such  a  violation 
of  compact  by  the  offending  government,  as 
to  produce  intolerable  oppression  for  which  no 
remedy  was  to  be  found  but  that  of  separation. 

Now,  nothing  is  more  clear  than  that  neither 
of  these  conditions  existed.  There  was  no  con 
sent  sought  for  or  expected,  but,  on  the  con 
trary,  a  haste  in  rushing  into  rebellion,  which 
one  might  almost  believe  was  intended  to  pre 
vent  the  risk  of  either  consent  or  conciliation. 

There  was  no  intolerable  oppression,  or, 
indeed,  oppression  of  any  kind.  The  utmost 
point  to  which  any  mover  of  the  sedition  went, 
was  to  affirm  that  it  was  feared  there  might  be 
some  oppression  hereafter,  —  though  that  was 
not  very  intelligibly  made  out  in  the  result  of 
the  Presidential  election,  which  proved  the 
successful  party  to  be  in  a  minority  of  the 
whole  vote  of  the  country.  We  had  heard,  it 
is  true,  a  great  deal  about  the  iniquity  of  import 
duties  and  protection  of  domestic  industry,  but 
these  were  only  the  common  resources  of  all 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  101 

Governments,  and,  indeed,  when  it  concerned 
Southern  interests,  were  the  special  requisitions 
of  Southern  policy ;  as,  for  example,  in  the  in 
variable  demand  from  the  South  for  the  pro 
tection  of  sugar  and  cotton,  —  to  say  nothing 
of  the  protection  insisted  upon  by  the  South 
for  our  early  cotton  manufacture. 

We  had  heard  a  complaint  that  the  bounty 
of  the  Government  had  fallen  in  stinted  meas 
ure  upon  the  South  in  the  expenditures  of  the 
revenue;  but  the  fact  was  that  the  public  treas 
ure  was  applied  in  that  section  to  the  establish 
ment  of  forts,  arsenals,  navy-yards,  hospitals, 
custom-houses,  mints,  and  other  public  struct 
ures,  quite  as  liberally  as  they  were  needed, 
and  certainly  without  any  idea  of  unjust  dis 
crimination  ;  whilst,  in  addition  to  these  ex 
penditures,  enormous  amounts,  far  greater  than 
were  appropriated  to  any  other  section,  were 
expended  in  the  purchase  and  defence  of  South 
ern  territory. 

We  had  heard  a  great  deal  said  about  the 
injustice  of  Congress  in  refusing  to  allow  the 
extension  of  slavery  into  the  territories  north 
of  the  Compromise  line  ;  indeed,  this  was  mag 
nified,  at  last,  into  the  chief  provocation  to  the 
war.  But  quite  apart  from  the  political  folly 


102  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

and  the  moral  atrocity  of  planting  slavery 
afresh,  and  with  premeditated  design,  in  free 
communities,  it  is  to  be  remarked  as  a  very 
notable  fact,  in  connection  with  this  as  a  ground 
of  quarrel,  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  was, 
itself,  a  Southern  measure,  and  its  passage 
hailed  throughout  the  South  as  a  signal  vic 
tory.  It  is  also  worthy  of  note,  that,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  Government,  Southern  states 
men  have  refused  to  allow  slavery  to  go  north 
of  that  line,  36°  30',  in  the  Territories ;  and 
that  the  Northwestern  Territory,  embracing  all 
the  Western  States  north  of  the  line,  was  made 
inviolably  free  soil  by  the  demand  of  Virginia, 
through  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  by  the  support  of 
Southern  votes. 

We  may  pursue  this  inquiry  through  all  the 
history  of  the  past,  and  we  shall  find  that  all 
these  topics  of  complaint  against  the  Govern 
ment,  which  have  furnished  themes  for  popular 
discourse  and  irritation  of  the  Southern  mind, 
and  which,  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury,  have  been  urged  as  incentives  to  disunion, 
are  but  pretexts  employed  as  lures  to  entrap  the 
ignorant,  or  as  devices  to  stimulate  the  sedition 
of  men  who  welcome  anything  that  may  give 
plausibility  to  a  foregone  purpose  of  revolt. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  103 

The  pursuit  of  independence  by  these  con 
federated  States  has  a  very  different  aim  from 
the  redress  of  such  shallow  griefs  as  these. 

Whoever  shall  be  able  hereafter  to  reveal 
the  secret  history  of  those  various  conclaves 
which  have  held  counsel  on  the  repeated  at 
tempts  to  invade  and  conquer,  —  or,  as  the 
phrase  was,  liberate  Cuba ;  whoever  shall  un 
fold  the  schemes  of  seizing  Nicaragua,  of  aiding 
revolution  in  Mexico,  of  possessing  Sonora,  will 
make  some  pretty  sure  advances  in  disclosing 
the  true  pathway  to  the  sources  of  this  re 
bellion.  The  organization  of  the  Knights  of 
the  Golden  Circle,  and  their  spread  over  the 
country ;  their  meetings  and  transactions  ;  who 
managed  them  and  set  them  on  to  do  their  ap 
pointed  work,  —  whoever  shall  penetrate  into 
the  midnight  which  veiled  this  order  from  view, 
will  also  open  an  authentic  chapter  in  the  his 
tory  of  this  outbreak. 

There  was  a  great  scheme  of  dominion  in 
this  plot.  The  fancy  of  certain  Southern  pol 
iticians  was  dazed  with  a  vision  of  Empire. 
Years  have  been  rolling  on  whilst  this  brilliant 
scheme  was  maturing  in  their  private  councils, 
and  at  intervals  startling  the  nation  by  some 
unexpected  eruption.  The  design,  which  lay 


104  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

too  deep  in  darkness  to  be  penetrated  by  the 
uninitiated,  occasionally  rose  to  the  surface  in 
some  bold  and  rash  adventure,  which  either 
the  vigilance  of  Government,  or  the  imperfect 
means  of  success  which  the  necessity  of  con 
cealment  imposed  upon  it,  rendered  abortive. 
The  Cuban  expeditions  miscarried ;  the  Sonora 
failed  ;  the  Nicaragua  forays  were  defeated,  — 
all  these  chiefly  by  the  careful  watch  of  the 
Government.  Large  sums  of  money  were 
squandered  in  these  fruitless  adventures,  and 
many  lives  were  lost.  Worse  than  these  mis 
haps,  eager  hopes  were  disappointed  and  long- 
indulged  dreams  dissipated.  It  was  found  that 
the  Union  was  in  the  way ;  that  the  National 
Government  was  the  impediment ;  and  that, 
as  long  as  the  South  was  bound  to  obey  that 
Government,  these  cherished  schemes  would 
be  always  certain  to  miscarry.  This  experi 
ence  turned  the  hostility  of  thwarted  ambition 
against  the  Union,  and  directed  the  thoughts 
of  these  agents  of  mischief  towards  its  destruc 
tion. 

Then  came  the  next  movement.  There  is, 
I  think,  a  better  foundation  than  mere  rumor 
for  saying  that  overtures  were  made,  before 
the  rebellion  broke  out,  to  the  Emperor  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  105 

the  French  for  support  and  patronage  in  the 
scheme ;  that  a  very  alluring  picture  was  pre 
sented  to  him  of  a  great  Southern  Confederacy, 
to  embrace  the  land  of  cotton,  of  sugar,  of  cof 
fee,  of  the  most  precious  tobaccoes,  and  of  the 
choicest  fruits,  of  the  most  valuable  timber,  and 
the  richest  mines,  —  comprehending  the  Gulf  v 
States,  Cuba,  St.  Domingo,  and  other  islands, 
Mexico,  Central  America,  and  perhaps  reach 
ing  even  beyond  into  the  borders  of  South 
America,  —  a  great  tropical  and  semi-tropical 
paradise  of  unbounded  affluence  of  product, 
secured  by  an  impregnable  monopoly  created 
by  Nature.  This  large  domain  was  to  be  or 
ganized  into  one  Confederate  Government,  and 
provided  with  the  cheapest  and  most  docile  and 
submissive  of  all  labor ;  its  lands  were  to  be 
parcelled  into  principalities,  and  landlords  were 
to  revel  in  the  riches  of  Aladdin's  lamp.  This 
was  the  grand  idea  which  the  Emperor  was 
solicited  to  patronize  with  his  protection,  for 
which  he  was  to  be  repaid  in  treaty  arrange 
ments,  by  which  France  should  enjoy  a  free 
trade  in  the  products  of  French  industry,  and 
precedence  in  gathering  the  first  fruits  of  all 
this  wealth  of  culture.  Certainly  a  very  daz 
zling  lure  this,  to  the  good  will  of  the  Emperor ! 


106  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

It  is  said  the  Emperor  was  quite  captivated 
with  the  first  view  of  this  brilliant  project,  but 
on  riper  deliberation  was  brought  to  a  pause. 
The  scheme,  he  discovered,  stood  on  one  leg : 
the  whole  structure  rested  on  slavery,  which 
was  much  too  ricketty  a  support  to  win  favor 
in  this  nineteenth  century  with  the  shrewdest 
of  European  statesmen.  The  plot  was  "  too 
light  for  the  counterpoise  of  so  great  an  oppo 
sition."  The  structure  might  last  a  few  years, 
but  very  soon  it  would  tumble  down  and  come 
to  nought.  And  so,  it  is  whispered,  the  Em 
peror  declined  the  venture.  This  is  a  bit  of 
secret  history  which  time  may  or  may  not 
verify.  From  some  inklings  of  that  day  which 
escaped  into  open  air,  I  believe  it  true.  We 
heard  various  boastings,  in  the  summer  of  1860, 
of  French  support  to  the  threatened  separation, 
and  there  were  agents  in  Europe  negotiating 
for  it.  During  all  that  preliminary  period  there 
was  a  great  deal  said  in  the  South  about  reviv 
ing  the  slave-trade.  When  the  Emperor  re 
fused,  this  was  suddenly  dropped  and  England 
was  then  looked  to  as  the  ally  in  the  coming 
revolt.  Abolition  England  was  to  be  won  by 
another  strategy.  The  Montgomery  Conven 
tion  asserted  a  clause  in  the  Confederate  Con- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  107 

stitution  forbidding  the  slave-trade,  and,  oddly- 
enough  for  a  government  founded  on  the  cen 
tral  idea  of  slavery,  the  commissioners  who 
represented  it  in  England  were  authorized  to 
assure  the  British  Minister  that  it  was  really 
the  old  Government  which  was  fighting  to  per 
petuate  slavery,  whilst  the  new  one  was  only 
seeking  free  trade ;  thereby  gently  insinuating 
a  disinterested  indifference  on  the  slave  ques 
tion,  which  might  ultimately  come  into  full 
accord  with  England  on  that  subject.  These 
revelations  stand  in  strange  contrast  with  the 
popular  theme  that  has  rushed  so  many  into 
the  rebellion.  As  the  matter  now  rests,  the 
rebel  Government  has  quite  platform  enough 
to  be  as  Dro-slavery  or  as  anti-slavery  as  its 
European  negotiations  may  require ;  and  if 
these  should  utterly  fail,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  constitutional  provision  to  interrupt  the 
African  slave-trade  a  single  day.  For  what  is 
that  provision  worth  in  a  region  where  neither 
courts  nor  juries  would  execute  the  law  ? 

Whilst  this  grand  idea  of  tropical  extension 
was  seething  in  the  brain  of  the  leaders,  and 
their  hopes  of  fruition  were  vivid,  the  plan  was 
to  confine  the  revolt  to  the  Cotton  States, — 
or,  at  least,  to  give  the  Border  States  a  very 


108  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

inferior  role  in  the  programme.  They  might 
come  in  when  all  was  adjusted,  but  were  to 
have  no  share  in  the  primary  organization. 
Every  one  remembers  how  these  Border  States 
were  flouted  in  the  beginning,  and  told  they 
were  not  fit  to  be  consulted,  and  that  the  only 
advantage  they  could  bring  to  the  Southern 
Confederacy  was  that  of  serving  as  a  frontier 
to  prevent  the  escape  of  slaves.  But  when 
the  original  plan  was  found  to  be  a  failure, 
the  views  of  the  managers  were  changed ;  the 
Border  States  became  indispensable  to  any 
hope  of  success,  and  the  most  active  agencies 
of  persuasion,  force,  and  fraud  were  set  in  mo 
tion  to  bring  them  in.  How  mournfully  did  it 
strike  upon  the  heart  of  the  nation  when  Vir 
ginia,  in  the  lead  of  this  career  of  submission, 
sank  to  the  humiliation  of  pocketing  the  affront 
that  had  been  put  upon  her,  and  consented  to 
accept  a  position  which  nothing  but  the  weak 
ness  of  her  new  comrades  induced  them  to 
allow  her! 

[/  Since  the  hope  of  this  broader  dominion  has 
come  to  an  end,  the  rebellion  is  still  persist 
ently  pursued  for  the  accomplishment  of  its 
secondary  objects.  There  is  still,  doubtless, 
some  residuary  expectation  that,  even  without 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  109 

foreign  patronage,  in  the  event  of  success,  this 
desire  of  extension  of  territory  may  in  time  be 
gratified ;  but  it  is  no  longer  the  chief  object 
of  pursuit.  The  pride  of  the  South,  its  re 
sentment,  its  rage,  are  all  now  enlisted  in 
pushing  forward  to  whatever  consummation 
they  may  imagine  to  be  attainable.  They  now 
insist  on  independence  from  the  very  hatred 
their  disappointments  have  engendered.  But 
they  seek  it,  too,  as  the  only  method  left  for 
the  maintenance  of  that  class  domination  which 
they  have  ever  enjoyed,  and  which  they  are 
now  unwilling  to  surrender. 


110  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 


LETTER  VII. 

REBELLION. 

JANUARY,  1864. 

IN  the  preceding  letters  I  have  had  occasion 
to  say  much  of  Secession  and  Revolution,  and 
to  show  the  different  categories  in  which  they 
respectively  place  the  war  waged  by  the  South. 
It  requires  no  great  insight  to  perceive  the 
relation  which  these  two  ideas,  considered  as 
motives  of  conduct,  have  to  the  question  of 
mere  right  and  wrong  in  this  conflict.  In  that 
view  they  have  a  notable  significance,  and  stand 
very  wide  apart.  I  recur  to  them  now  to  make 
some  remarks  on  that  point,  and  to  note  the 
alternate  use  the  partisans  of  the  South  have 
made  of  these  two  topics  as  persuasives  in  aid 
of  their  project  to  destroy  the  Union. 

By  the  opportune  use  of  both,  as  occasion 
favored,  they  have  increased  the  popularity  of 
their  cause.  They  would  have  failed  if  they 
had  been  compelled  to  present  it  to  their  peo 
ple  singly,  upon  either  of  the  two.  Neither 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  Ill 

secession  alone,  nor  revolution  alone,  would  have 
found  that  undivided  support  which  is  essential 
to  success.  In  that  storm  of  excitement  raised 
by  their  chiefs  at  the  beginning  of  the  strife, 
and  in  the  flurry  of  that  vainglorious,  and,  I 
might  say,  insolent  spirit  of  defiance,  —  that  con 
temptuous  disparagement  of  the  North  as  a  self 
ish,  vulgar,  and  craven  people,  over  whom  they 
promised  an  easy  victory  and  a  short  war,  — 
the  Southern  masses  were  hurried  along  into 
the  irrevocable  step  of  rebellion.  Few  stopped 
to  weigh  the  excuse  for  such  a  step,  but  listened 
with  willing  ear  to  every  pretext,  however  false 
or  feeble,  in  its  justification,  which  partisanship 
or  political  bigotry  could  suggest.  The  multi 
tude  were  incapable  of  any  accurate  or  con 
scientious  opinion  on  the  subject;  all  were 
anxious  to  take  a  quick  part  in  the  coming 
fray,  not  doubting  for  a  moment  that  the  pre 
ordained  feat  was  to  be  accomplished  with  little 
more  expenditure  of  means  than  the  show  of 
force  and  a  swaggering  boast  of  certain  tri 
umph.  Thus  it  came  that  we  saw  the  instant 
exhibition  of  that  martial  array,  which  aston 
ished  the  world  by  its  magnitude  and  the  sober 
thinking  people  of  the  Loyal  States  by  its  mad 
ness.  All  that  host  which  came  into  the  field, 


112  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

and  that  great  reserve  which  stood  behind  it  at 
home,  claimed  the  vindication  of  their  conduct 
on  one  or  the  other  of  these  motives,  —  often  in 
the  avowal  of  both.  They  professed  secession, 
or  revolution,  or  both,  quite  indifferent  to  the 
moral  responsibility  inferred  by  either. 

I  have  observed  many  persons,  whose  pre 
vious  education  and  habit  of  opinion  had  com 
mitted  them  against  the  doctrine  of  secession, 
seizing  with  avidity  upon  what  they  were  glad 
to  call  a  right  of  revolution,  too  plainly  as  a 
mere  salvo  to  bring  their  easily  satisfied  con 
sciences  into  accord  with  their  foregone  resolve 
to  embark  in  the  rebellion.  They  imagined 
they  had  found  a  complete  justification  in  so 
wretched  a  self-deceit  as  this,  even  for  a  deed  so 
portentous  as  that  of  rending  their  country  in 
to  fragments.  They  did  not  deign  to  ask  them 
selves  the  question  whether  their  revolution 
had  a  single  plea  to  redeem  it  from  the  disgrace 
of  an  immeasurable  crime.  It  was  enough  to 
call  it  "revolution,"  and  thenceforth  treason  be 
came  transmuted  into  a  virtue.  "  You  are  very 
much  mistaken,  sir,"  said  a  young  Marylander, 
conversing  with  an  acquaintance  in  Washing 
ton,  just  after  the  famous  nineteenth  of  April, 
speaking  with  exultation  of  that  bloody  scene 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  113 

in  the  streets  of  Baltimore,  in  which  citizen 
soldiers,  whilst  peaceably  marching  through,  in 
obedience  to  law  and  in  the  performance  of 
honorable  duty,  were  ferociously  set  upon  and 
murdered,  —  the  young  spokesman  himself 
scarcely  concealing  his  own  participation  in  the 
affair,  but  describing  it  as  a  heroic  exploit, — 
"  You  are  much  mistaken  when  you  call  this 
a  riot.  No,  sir ;  it  is  a  revolution  !  Maryland 
does  not  go  for  secession,  she  goes  for  revolu 
tion."  All  thought  of  crime  had,  of  course, 
vanished  from  his  mind.  His  heart  was  full  of 
war.  He  was  ready  to  desolate  every  field  in 
Maryland  and  convert  her  chief  city  into  a 
blackened  ruin.  Revolution  —  with  what  ex 
cuse  for  it !  —  had  been  installed.  The  next 
step  was  to  make  it  glorious  with  carnage. 

With  such  a  flippant  and  silly  casuistry  as 
this,  how  many  thousands  have  imbrued  their 
hands  in  the  blood  of  their  brethren ! 

I  have  seen  others,  not  quite  bold  enough  to 
outface  the  opinion  of  the  community  in  which 
they  lived,  by  an  open  avowal  of  a  purpose  of 
revolution  —  there  being  still  some  prudent 
suspicion  that  the  people  of  the  neighborhood 
were  not  yet  maddened  up  to  the  delusion  of 
believing  in  the  tyranny  of  our  free  Govern- 
8 


114  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

ment  —  who  have  gradually  slid  into  the  doc 
trine  of  secession,  as  the  only  shift  left  them  to 
gratify  a  love  for  political  excitement,  and  to 
furnish  a  pretext  for  joining  the  ranks  of  com 
rades  who  had  fired  their  imagination  with 
visions  of  honor  and  hopes  of  personal  reward 
to  be  won  over  the  prostrate  body  of  their 
country.  In  such  case  the  feeble  plea  of  se 
cession  —  once  called  the  peaceful  process  of 
change  —  was  held  to  justify  all  the  wild  vio 
lence  which  preluded  and  challenged  the  meas 
ures  taken  by  the  Government  for  its  own 
defence. 

I  will  not  say  that  there  are  not  large  num 
bers  of  persons  in  the  South  who  have  given 
their  aid  to  this  destructive  war  on  more  honest 
grounds.  It  is  not  credible  that,  in  a  conflict 
of  such  momentous  issues,  whole  communities 
should  rush  into  it  with  such  earnest  zeal  as 
stirs  the  heart  of  the  Southern  States,  and 
should  pursue  it  with  such  brave  perseverance, 
through  such  an  experience  of  suffering  and 
sacrifice  as  we  now  witness,  without  being 
sustained  by  some  very  vivid  conviction  of 
right  and  duty.  We  know  too  well,  and  deplore 
too  poignantly,  the  fact  that  in  those  ranks  are 
found  many  men  adorned  with  the  best  qual- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  115 

ities  that  inspire  respect  and  confidence.  Their 
armies  and  their  councils  are  full  of  them. 
They  do  us  a  great  injustice  if  they  think  we 
underrate  either  their  sincerity  or  their  per 
sonal  worth.  How  joyously  would  we  welcome 
them  back  to  that  brotherhood  which  they  have 
so  recklessly  broken  !  But  all  history  warns 
us  that  the  virtue  of  strife  is  not  to  be  judged 
by  the  fervor  of  its  champions  nor  by  the  earn 
estness  of  their  convictions.  A  false  principle, 
unhappily,  more  potently  invokes  the  intem 
perate  vindication  of  mankind  than  a  true  one. 
It  wages  a  fiercer  war  ;  although,  in  the  end,  it 
is  surest  of  overthrow.  When  it  is  brought  into 
conflict  with  the  sentiment  of  a  society  as  pow 
erful  as  its  own,  the  very  hazard  of  its  assertion 
presents  a  danger  which  exaggerates  it  into  a 
passion  that  so  distempers  the  mind  as  to  make 
reflection  hopeless.  Many  good  men  of  the 
South  have  been  swept  from  their  feet  by  this 
impulse  as  by  a  whirlwind. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  find  the  means  of 
friendly  approach,  in  a  rebellion  like  this,  to 
the  class  of  men  I  have  just  described,  —  men 
who,  with  honest  convictions,  have  fallen  into 
the  error  of  false  opinion,  through  temperament 
or  local  influence  or  some  ply  of  early  educa- 


116  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

tion.  The  wrong-headed  are  proverbially  ob 
stinate,  even  in  the  debates  of  tranquil  life ;  they 
are  proportionately  hopeless  of  persuasion  in 
the  great  turmoils  of  public  affairs,  when  pas 
sion  stimulates  the  heart  and  inflames  the  pride 
of  the  mfnd. 

In  looking  to  this  description  of  really  earn 
est  champions  of  the  South,  we  shall  find  them, 
like  the  others,  divided  between  the  two  mo 
tives  to  which  I  have  referred. 

There  are  not  a  few  of  the  most  authorita 
tive  of  these  champions  who,  by  some  strange 
aberration  which  almost  amounts  to  an  idiosyn 
crasy,  have  grown  up  in  the  conscientious  belief 
that  our  national  Union  was  never,  and  never 
meant  to  be,  anything  better  than  a  rope  of 
sand,  —  the  feeblest  voluntary  compact,  un 
guarded  by  a  single  defence  against  the  supe 
rior  power  of  the  States ;  that  no  one  owed  it 
allegiance,  —  not  even  the  poor  respect  of  rev 
erence  ;  that  no  State  owed  it  obedience  any 
further  than  suited  its  own  convenience.  Such 
a  fancy  must  naturally  engender  contempt  for 
the  Union  whenever  a  contingency  should  arise 
to  bring  it  into  conflict  with  State  preten 
sion. 

We  may  trace  this  extraordinary  doctrine  to 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  117 

a  political  vice  which  has  been  nursed  in  the 
peculiar  constitution  of  Southern  society,  and 
which  has  given  the  predominant  hue  to  all 
characteristic  Southern  opinion  ;  that  most  per 
nicious  vice  of  an  exorbitant  and  engrossing 
State  pride,  — a  sentiment,  which  we  may  say, 
is  not  only  dangerous,  but  fatal  to  any  just 
estimate  or  conception  of  the  national  suprem 
acy. 

I  do  not  stop  here  to  consider  the  source,  the 
extent  or  the  influences  of  this  sentiment.  I 
have  only  to  remark,  that  it  takes  hold  of  much 
of  the  Southern  mind  with  the  grasp  and  qual 
ity  of  a  great  egotism,  creating  an  emotion  of 
self-glorification  in  those  who  foster  it,  and 
breeding  ideas  of  sectional  and  personal  supe 
riority  which  make  them  jealous  of  the  Na 
tional  Government,  and,  in  a  certain  sense, 
unfriendly  to  all  who  look  upon  that  Govern 
ment  as  a  paramount  power.  They  habitually 
degrade  the  Union  in  the  common  esteem  of 
their  circle,  reduce  their  politics  to  the  stand 
ard  of  a  narrow  provincialism,  and  disqualify 
themselves  for  that  comprehensive  statesman 
ship  which  embraces  catholic  love  of  country. 

We  have  been  accustomed  in  past  time  — 
long  before  this  sad  commotion  had  ruffled  the 


118  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

surface  of  our  peaceful  life  —  to  smile  at  some 
of  the  phases  of  character  which  this  sentiment 
had  impressed  upon  a  class  of  country  gentle 
men  very  frequently  encountered  in  the  older 
States  of  the   South.      Many  a   man  of  this 
worshipful   order,  jocund   and  complacent   in 
the  patriarchal  dignity  conferred  by  hereditary 
bondsmen  and  acres,  has  been  pleasantly  noted, 
in    those   innocent   days,  for  a    constitutional 
dogmatism  on  the  question  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  State,  and  for  the  radiant  self-satisfac 
tion  with  which  he  was  wont  to  demonstrate 
the  shallowness  of  that  pestilent  fallacy  which, 
he  affirmed,  so  often  misled  the  logic  of  Con 
gress  and  muddled  the  brains  of  Webster  and 
Clay,  —  and  even,  he  was  sorry  to  believe,  of 
Marshall  and  Madison,  —  the  fallacy,  namely, 
of  supposing  that  the  United  States  could  law 
fully  aspire  to  the  grandeur  of  a  nation.     Cen 
tralization  was   the  phantom  which   appeared 
especially  to  haunt  the  minds  of  these  worthy 
gentlemen.     "  We  are  plunging  into  the  gulf 
of  centralization,"  was  their  common  warning. 
If,  in  making  this  dogma  clear,  they  were  some 
what   incomprehensible  or  even  tedious,  they 
were   always  earnest  and,  in  their  own  judg 
ment,  infallible. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  119 

But  whilst  this  State  pride  did  no  greater 
harm,  in  our  earlier  and  happier  era,  than  the 
producing  this  crop  of  impracticable  dialecti 
cians,  whose  obstructive  philosophy  was  con 
stantly  overleaped  by  the  general  good  sense  of 
the  nation,  and  whom  the  country  could  afford 
to  endure,  and  even  to  flatter,  for  the  good- 
natured  vanity  of  their  opinions,  it  has,  in  this 
later  and  sadder  day,  converted  its  once  innoc 
uous  votaries  into  seditious  plotters  against  the 
common  peace,  and,  by  rapid  transition,  into 
fierce  soldiers  and  implacable  rebels.  It  has 
now  become  apparent  that  this  excessive  pride 
of  State  has  been  silently,  for  half  a  century 
or  more,  sowing  the  seeds  of  that  dreadful 
strife  of  which  the  present  generation  is  reap 
ing  the  harvest. 

All  of  this  class  of  thinkers  —  whom  I  have 
sought  to  characterize  by  their  extravagant 
devotion  to  a  distorted  ideal  of  the  ascendant 
position  of  the  State  in  our  political  system, 
and  by  their  personal  sentiment  of  State  pride 
and  its  corollaries  of  State  rights,  as  these  are 
magnified  by  the  lens  of  Southern  opinion  — 
are,  by  natural  consequence  and  fair  deduction 
from  their  antecedents,  out-and-out  Secession 
ists,  honestly  consistent  in  their  faith,  and  do 


120  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

not  pretend  to,  or  desire,  other  justification  for 
their  participation  in  the  present  disturbance, 
than  that  which  they  find  in  their  own  phi 
losophy. 

There  is  another  class,  the  counterpart  to 
these,  equally  sincere  in  their  conviction, 
wholly  opposed  to  this  theory  of  secession, 
wholly  unstricken  by  this  inordinate  estimate 
of  the  State,  who  are  afflicted  with  a  hallucina 
tion  even  more  mischievous.  They  are  men 
who  have  wrought  themselves  to  the  belief 
that  the  National  Government  has  already 
grown  to  be  a  monster  of  such  horrid  propor 
tions  and  propensities  as  to  be  no  longer  endur 
able  by  a  free  people  ;  that  it  has  been  per 
verted  —  to  use  their  own  language  —  into  "  a 
consolidated  despotism,"  under  the  pressure  of 
whose  malignant  power  all  liberty,  civil  and 
religious,  is  doomed  to  be  crushed  out ;  that 
the  representative  system  no  longer  affords 
space  for  the  expression  of  the  popular  will  as 
a  defence  against  executive  ambition  ;  that 
State  organizations  are  no  longer  barriers 
against  national  encroachments,  and  that  the 
President  and  his  party  are  not  only  the  abso 
lute  lords  of  the  ascendant,  but  that  their 
power  is  destined  to  be  perpetual  and  univer- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  121 

sal.  Such  are  the  spectres  that  have  affrighted 
the  imagination  of  these  men  and  moved  them 
to  the  melancholy  conviction  that  nothing  short 
of  a  bloody  revolution  can  rescue  them  and 
their  generations  from  the  grasp  of  this  inex 
orable  tyranny.  Nothing,  therefore,  in  their 
view,  is  more  righteous,  manly,  and  patriotic 
than  a  stern  appeal  to  the  sword  as  a  redress 
for  their  wrongs.  In  this  excited  temper  they 
rush  into  the  melee  of  revolution,  with  the  sin 
cere  hope  of  being  able  to  regain  their  lost  lib 
erties  in  a  New  Confederacy  enlightened  and 
sustained  by  the  tolerant  and  freedom-loving 
nature  of  Southern  opinion,  —  and  founded  on 
the  sacred  corner-stone  of  unlimited  African 
slavery ! 

Both  of  these  opposite  groups  of  thinkers  are 
now  profoundly  in  earnest  in  this  conflict,  and, 
what  is  certainly  calculated  to  excite  the  won 
der  of  an  unconcerned  spectator,  are  quite  in 
harmony  with  each  other,  acting  together  for  a 
common  end,  apparently  unconscious  of  their 
divergence  of  creed,  and  the  trouble  they 
might  expect  to  find,  in  the  event  of  success, 
to  administer  to  their  mutual  satisfaction  the 
form  of  government  they  have  unanimously 
adopted. 


122  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

Now,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that,  whilst  the 
master  spirits  of  this  furious  war  have  seen  the 
value  and  taken  advantage  of  these  alternate 
agencies  which  have  been  so  busy  in  stirring 
up  the  people  to  a  revolt  against  the  Govern 
ment  ;  and  whilst  they  have  lost  no  opportunity 
to  encourage  this  variety 'of  motive,  and  have 
plied  every  artifice  of  seduction  or  force  to 
lure,  drive,  or  drag  impetuous  manhood  and 
credulous  age,  no  less  than  pliant  youth,  into 
fatal  alliance  with  the  crime  of  treason,  by  every 
argument  adapted  to  the  prejudices,  scruples, 
or  different  temperaments  they  had  to  deal 
with,  they  have  themselves  been  cautious,  in 
every  public  or  official  proclamation  of  their 
enterprise,  to  avoid  any  acknowledgment  of  a 
design  of  revolution.  Whatever  the  intrinsic 
motive  of  their  assault  has  been,  however  vio 
lent  and  revolutionary  their  proceeding,  the 
official  attitude  they  have  assumed  is  that  of 
States,  asserting  their  right  to  a  peaceful  and 
constitutional  retirement  from  the  National 
Union.  They  proclaim  a  right  of  secession  as 
the  sole  basis  of  their  action ;  whilst  it  is  too 
unhappily  evident  that  both  their  design  and 
practice  are  revolution  in  its  boldest  and  rudest 
form  of  exhibition.  Their  proclamation  is 


.  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  123 

intended  for  the  world,  and  more  especially 
for  that  European  world  whose  sympathy  they 
have  evoked,  whose  aid  they  have  expected, 
and  whose  moral  support  it  was  deemed  all 
important  to  conciliate. 

They  were  too  astute  not  to  perceive  that 
—  whilst  their  scheme  was  simply  a  design  to 
destroy  the  Union  by  a  daring  and  impious  act 
of  violence,  and  upon  its  ruins  to  construct  a 
separate  empire  of  their  own,  adapted  to  the 
polity  suggested  by  their  personal  ambition  and 
the  greed  of  a  fancied  boundless  wealth  —  they 
would  hold  a  vantage  ground  in  the  great  quar 
rel  by  keeping  out  of  view  every  consideration 
which  might  infer  their  acknowledgment  of  a 
rebel  position. 

We  may  easily  recount  the  obvious  disad 
vantages  which  such  an  avowal  would  have 
thrown  in  their  way,  and  which  the  secession 
theory  —  if  the  world  could  be  persuaded  to 
accredit  it  —  would  avoid. 

First.  The  acknowledgment  of  a  revolution 
ary  movement  would  (as  I  have  hitherto  had 
occasion  to  remark)  have  carried  the  admission 
that  they  were  the  aggressors  in  the  war;  that 
war  was  contemplated  by  them  as  the  neces 
sary  and  premeditated  means  of  their  success, 


124  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

and  was,  consequently,  an  act  of  their  own 
making,  —  for  revolution  always  implies  rebel 
lion,  and  rebellion  is  war. 

Second.  It  would  have  silenced  at  once  that 
popular  outcry  against  coercion  which  was  found 
so  effective,  in  the  beginning  of  the  quarrel,  in 
exciting  a  prejudice  against  the  Government, 
by  charging  it  with  the  perpetration  of  a  fla 
grant  outrage  against  States  that  were  merely 
asserting  their  constitutional  rights.  For  rebel 
lion  being  in  its  nature  aggressive,  every  man 
would  acknowledge  that  the  Government  would 
be  but  in  the  performance  of  its  clearest  duty 
in  arraying  the  force  of  the  country  to  resist 
the  blow  aimed  at  it  and  to  punish  the  assail 
ant.  If  there  be  any  obligation  more  distinctly 
sanctioned  by  the  concurrent  opinion  of  man 
kind  or  the  law  of  nations,  and  the  neglect  of 
which  is  stigmatized  by  a  deeper  disgrace  than 
any  other  in  the  sphere  of  public  duty,  it  is 
that  which  is  demanded  of  every  nation  to  pro 
tect  the  welfare  of  its  people  against  "  privy 
conspiracy,  sedition,  and  rebellion,"  —  those 
three  grievous  plagues  of  organized  society 
against  which  the  Church  weekly  invokes  the 
deliverance  of  Heaven.  If,  therefore,  the  rebel 
leaders  had  announced  their  design  as  one  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  125 

revolution,  seeking  to  overthrow  the  laws  and 
break  up  the  established  order  of  the  Union  by 
violent  application  of  force,  there  was  no  man 
amongst  them  so  obtuse  as  not  to  be  capable  of 
seeing  how  senseless  must  have  been  the  com 
plaint  against  the  President  for  invoking  the  aid 
of  the  military  power  of  the  country  to  resist 
them. 

Third.  They  knew  that  a  scheme  of  revolu 
tion,  being  an  appeal  to  those  who  are  discon 
tented  with  the  Government  to  rebel  against  it, 
only  addresses  itself  to.  such  as  believe  in  its 
expediency,  and  leaves  all  who  do  not  assent 
to  that  expediency  at  liberty  to  refuse  their 
aid ;  that  this  freedom  of  action  would,  in  the 
first  stages  of  the  movement,  have  allowed  a 
large  portion  of  the  people  of  the  South  the 
opportunity  to  stand  firm  to  their  loyalty,  and 
refuse  to  take  any  share  in  the  revolt  against 
their  country ;  whilst,  on  the  secession  theory, 
the  State  would  act  in  its  sovereign  capacity, 
and,  by  declaring  the  separation  complete, 
would  exact  the  obedience  of  its  citizens.  In 
the  first  case,  the  citizen  would  regard  himself 
as  an  individual  free  agent,  with  full  liberty  to 
decide  upon  his  own  conduct ;  in  the  latter,  he 
would  be  overborne  and  coerced  by  a  corporate 


126  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

authority  claiming  his  allegiance  and  subordi 
nating  his  individual  will  to  what  is  called  the 
public  interest. 

Fourth.  Revolution  also  infers  another  and 
still  more  embarrassing  right,  —  that  of  coun 
ter  revolution.     If  the  State  may  rebel  against 
the   National   Government,  why  may  not  an 
aggrieved  or  discontented  portion  of  the  people 
of  the  State  rebel  against  the  State  ?    Rebellion 
is  a  teacher   of  "  bloody  instructions "  which 
may  "  return  to  plague  the  inventor."     What 
argument  can  Virginia,  for  example,  make  in 
favor  of  a  revolt  against  the  authority  of  the 
Union,  that  may  not  be  used  with  tenfold  force 
by  her  own  western  counties  to  justify  a  revolt 
against  her?     Virginia  herself  had  really  no 
definable  grievance  against  the  Union.      She 
was  absolute  mistress  of  her  own  domestic  gov 
ernment,  and  could  freely  enact  and  execute  all 
laws  which  she  might  deem  necessary  to  her 
own  welfare  within  her  own  limits.    No  human 
power  could  interfere  with  her  there.     She  has 
never  yet  indicated  a  single  item  of  grievance 
resulting  from  the  acts  of  the  Federal  Govern 
ment.      In  fact  that  Government  has  always 
been,  in  great  part,  in  her  own  hands,  or  under 
the  control  of  her  influence.     If  she  has  not 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  127 

been  happy  and  prosperous  it  is  her  own  fault. 
I  mean  to  say,  she  has  no  cause  whatever  to  ex 
cuse  her  rebellion  against  the  Union.  Yet  she 
revolted ;  we  may  say,  gave  to  the  revolution 
a  countenance  and  support  without  which  it 
would  have  speedily  sunk  into  a  futile  enter 
prise.  Having  come  into  it,  she  assumed  the 
right  to  compel  her  unwilling  citizens  to  cast 
their  lives  and  fortunes  into  the  same  issue.  A 
large  portion  of  her  people,  comprising  the  in 
habitants  of  many  counties  in  the  mountain 
region  of  the  Alleghanies,  have  always  been 
distinguished  —  as,  indeed,  seems  to  be  the 
characteristic  of  all  our  mountain  country  — 
for  their  strong  attachment  to  the  Union. 
These  people  have  an  aversion  to  slavery,  and 
have  been  steadily  intent  upon  establishing  and 
expanding  a  system  of  free  labor.  They  have, 
in  fact,  very  little  in  common,  either  of  sen 
timent  or  interest,  with  the  governing  power 
of  the  State.  When,  therefore,  the  question 
of  secession  was  submitted  to  them,  they  voted 
against  it.  From  that  moment  they  were 
marked,  and  when  the  State,  under  the  con 
trol  of  its  lowland  interest,  raised  the  banner 
of  revolt,  its  first  movement  was  to  invite  the 
Southern  army  to  occupy  the  mountain  dis- 


128  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

tricts,  to  overawe  and  drive  the  people  there, 
not  only  into  submission  to  the  dominant  power 
of  the  State,  but  into  active  hostility  against 
the  Union.  To  this  end  these  loyal  people  were 
pursued  with  a  bitter  persecution,  harried  by  a 
ruffian  soldiery,  hunted  from  their  homes  into 
the  mountain  fastnesses,  their  dwellings  burnt, 
their  crops  destroyed,  their  fields  laid  waste, 
and  every  other  cruelty  inflicted  upon  them 
to  which  the  savage  spirit  of  revolution  usu 
ally  resorts  to  compel  the  consent  of  those  who 
resist  its  command.  The  inhabitants  of  these 
beautiful  mountain  valleys  are  a  simple,  brave, 
and  sturdy  people,  and  all  these  terrors  were 
found  insufficient  to  force  them  into  an  act  of 
treason.  They  refused,  and  in  their  turn  re 
volted  against  this  execrable  tyranny  and  drew 
their  swords  in  favor  of  the  Union.  What 
more  natural  or  righteous  than  such  a  resist 
ance  ?  And  yet,  Virginia  affects  to  consider 
this  the  deepest  of  crimes,  and  is  continually 
threatening  vengeance  against  what  she  calls 
these  rebels  :  —  Virginia,  the  rebel,  denounc 
ing  rebellion  ! 

Her  own  plea  is,  that  she  has  only  seceded; 
but  Western  Virginia  rebels.  There  is  a  great 
difference ! 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  129 

The  Southern  Confederacy,  like  Virginia, 
sees  this  great  difference  in  the  two  catego 
ries,  and  is  quick  enough  to  take  advantage, 
as  occasion  serves,  of  that  which  suits  its  pur 
pose. 

The  same  state  of  things  exists  in  Eastern 
Tennessee,  in  Western  North  Carolina,  in 
Arkansas,  and  even  in  parts  of  Georgia  and 
Alabama.  Counter  revolution  would  be  rife 
in  many  districts,  if  the  rebel  Government  did 
not  suppress  it  with  an  iron  hand,  and  sub 
jugate  the  people  by  the  presence  of  military 
force.  Even  this  would  be  impossible  if  they 
had  not  insinuated  into  the  popular  mind  of 
the  South,  as  largely  as  they  have  done,  the 
conviction  of  a  right  of  secession,  and  per 
suaded  the  country  that  they  were  acting  on 
that  theory,  and  were  but  asserting  the  legiti 
mate  sovereignty  of  the  States. 

Western  Virginia,  for  two  years,  endured 
the  privation  and  suffering  of  this  cruel  and 
wicked  attempt  to  enforce  its  submission  and 
compel  its  people  to  abjure  their  earnest  and 
eager  allegiance  to  the  Union  —  two  years  that 
left  them  without  law,  without  any  of  the  ap 
paratus  of  government,  helpless  in  everything 
but  their  own  firm  resolution  and  voluntary  self- 
9 


130  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

control  as  an  orderly  community ;  until,  find 
ing  themselves  under  a  necessity  for  organiza 
tion,  they  erected  their  broken  community  into 
a  government  claiming  its  foundation  in  a  just 
and  righteous  revolution,  and  in  that  character 
sought  a  place  in  the  Union.  Congress  assented 
to  their  claim,  and  holding  them,  moreover,  as 
loyal  men,  constituting  a  majority  in  number 
of  the  whole  people  of  Virginia  who  retained 
a  lawful  citizenship  in  that  State,  accorded  to 
them  the  right  to  express  the  voice  of  the  State 
in  favor  of  the  division  which  thus  gave  a  new 
member  to  the  Union. 

What  lawful  objection  can  the  South  make 
to  this  counter  revolution,  but  the  simple,  and, 
in  the  actual  state  of  the  case,  absurd  idea 
that  it  is  not  itself  pursuing  a  career  of  revo 
lution,  but  only  a  constitutional  right  of  seces 
sion  ? 

Lastly,  I  may  add  to  the  considerations  which 
have  operated  upon  the  mind  of  the  Southern 
leaders  in  their  endeavor  to  persuade  the  world 
that  they  are  not  amenable  to  the  responsibili 
ties  of  a  rebellion,  one  which  I  have  presented 
in  a  former  letter,  and  which  I  briefly  repeat 
here  as  necessary  to  the  completeness  of  this 
summary.  The  inauguration  of  a  rebellion 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  131 

imposes  upon  those  who  attempt  it  the  neces 
sity  of  showing  a  just  cause  for  such  an  assault 
upon  the  peace  of  society.  It  must  be  no' 
casual  disturbance  of  the  welfare  of  a  district, 
no  fancied  possible  wrong  impending  over  the 
future,  no  motive  of  factious  ambition,  but 
a  real,  present,  permanent  element  of  actual 
or  prospective  discontent  which  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  peaceful  redress  through  the  appointed 
forms  of  amendment,  but  which  is  so  radicated 
in  the  constitution  of  government  that  nothing 
short  of  forcible  resistance  can  remove  it.  The 
writers  in  the  interest  of  legitimacy,  as  that  is 
understood  in  European  law,  say  it  must  be 
a  condition  of  intolerable  and  irremediable  op 
pression.  Our  American  doctrine  does  not  go 
so  far  as  that.  We  substitute  for  it  a  reason 
able  apprehension  of  an  incurable  perversion  of 
government  towards  the  invasion  of  public  or 
private  rights.  And,  even  in  that  case,  rev 
olution  cannot  justly  be  resorted  to  until,  by 
appeal  to  all  the  normal  or  appointed  means 
of  redress,  it  is  proved  that  remedy  is  hope 
less.  Short  of  these  conditions,  revolution  is 
the  greatest  of  crimes,  the  blacker  in  propor 
tion  to  the  unreality  of  the  asserted  grief  or  the 
neglect  of  the  resort  to  the  ordained  process  of 


132  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

amendment.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
of  any  justifiable  motive  to  revolution  in  a 
popular  representative  government,  where  the 
whole  sovereign  power  resides  in  the  people 
themselves,  and  their  constitution  and  laws  are 
subject  to  any  amelioration  suggested  by  the 
popular  will.  Certainly  the  founders  of  our 
government  supposed  that,  in  the  scheme  they 
matured,  they  had  forever  extinguished  the 
right  of  revolution. 

But  those  I  have  enumerated  are,  at  least, 
the  conditions  to  which  the  leaders  of  the  pres 
ent  rebellion  would  be  bound  to  submit  their 
action,  if  they  confess  a  design  to  overthrow  the 
Union  by  force ;  and,  confessing  that  design, 
they  would  occupy  simply  the  position  of  rebels 
fully  aware  of  the  hazards  and  the  penalty  of 
their  undertaking,  and  presumably  ready  to 
meet  them.  In  that  view  they  become  liable 
to  be  treated  as  traitors,  they,  their  aiders  and 
abettors.  They  lose  all  claim  to  the  protection 
of  the  laws,  and,  still  more  emphatically,  to 
the  right  to  exercise  any  privilege  of  national 
citizenship.  They  can  hold  no  office,  State  or 
Federal,  which  implies  allegiance  to  the  Gov 
ernment  ;  they  abjure  or  renounce  all  right  to 
give  a  vote  in  either  State  or  national  affairs 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  133 

where  the  qualification  demands  national  citi 
zenship  ;  they  are  enemies,  while  in  arms,  to 
be  met  in  mortal  conflict ;  when  subdued,  they 
are  culprits,  dependent  upon  the  clemency  or 
the  justice  of  the  Government. 

It  was  to  avoid  these  conclusions,  as  I  have 
said,  that  the  authors  of  this  movement  have 
been  careful  to  veil  their  proceeding  under  the 
official  proclamation  of  the  right  of  secession. 

They  have  found  it  a  difficult  task  to  recon 
cile  the  impetuous  rashness  of  their  career  with 
this  theory.  Secession,  if  honestly  conceived 
to  be  a  right,  and  honestly  pursued,  would  have 
sought,  at  least,  a  preliminary  parley  in  a  con 
vention.  It  would  have  moved  slowly  along 
through  all  the  customary  forms  of  debate.  It 
would  have  published  a  manifesto  of  its  motives 
for  the  separation,  and  calmly  laid  down  the 
law  which  defined  its  privilege,  and  have  shown 
the  unanimity  of  the  Southern  people  in  the 
belief  of  it.  None  of  these  things  has  it  done. 
The  conductors  of  the  proceeding  began  in  a 
paroxysm  of  impetuous  enthusiasm  ;  asserted 
their  purpose  in  a  general  muster  of  their 
forces ;  put  every  State  in  arms,  and  furnished 
their  magazines  of  war  ;  boasted  of  their  prow 
ess,  with  threats  of  seizure  of  the  Capital,  and 


134  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

even  of  invasion  and  conquest  of  the  North ; 
glorified  themselves  with  the  imagination  of 
an  unlimited  control  over  the  sympathy  and 
interest  of  foreign  Powers,  which  they  confi 
dently  contemplated  as  prompt  and  irresistible 
allies.  Their  language  was  not  only  that  of 
arrogant  dictation,  but  of  eager  and  bloody  de 
fiance.  They  rushed  forward  with  a  precipita 
tion  which  seemed,  and  no  doubt  was  intended, 
to  preclude  all  reflection  or  inquiry  into  the 
merits  of  the  cause.  There  was  the  ominous 
glimmer  of  predetermined  war  in  every  step 
that  was  taken.  Their  first  act  was  to  close 
the  courts  against  the  recovery  of  debts,  which 
was  sufficiently  explained,  in  the  sequel,  by  the 
confiscation  of  all  moneys  due  to  Northern  cred 
itors.  The  "Charleston  Mercury,"  exulting 
in  the  approach  of  the  day  for  assembling  the 
State  Convention,  maliciously  spoke  of  seces 
sion  as  "quasi  war,"  which  would  justify,  what, 
even  then,  it  recommended,  the  sequestration  of 
all  property  in  the  South  belonging  to  North 
ern  citizens.  They  seized  the  national  forts  and 
arsenals  wherever  they  could  lay  their  hands 
on  them  ;  insulted  the  nation  and  disgraced 
themselves  by  a  contemptible  act  of  contrived 
treachery  in  compassing  the  surrender  of  the 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  135 

army  in  Texas  by  the  complicity  of  its  own 
officers.  They  wanted  money,  and  they  seized 
the  mint  at  New  Orleans ;  arms,  and  they 
seized  the  manufactory  at  Harper's  Ferry ; 
ships,  cannon,  and  naval  stores,  and  they 
forcibly  took  possession  of  the  navy-yard  at 
Gosport,  and  pounced  upon  revenue-cutters, 
private  steamers,  and  merchant-vessels  at  their 
moorings  ;  they  even  exhorted  and  encouraged 
officers  of  the  navy,  to  whom  the  nation  had 
confided  the  guardianship  of  its  honor  and  its 
flag,  to  betray  that  sacred  trust,  by  an  act  too 
base  to  find  expression  in  the  vocabulary  of  ex 
ecration.  All  these  things  were  done,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  States  where  they  were  per 
petrated,  before  they  had  even  laid  the  flimsy 
foundation  of  an  ordinance  of  secession,  and 
done,  too,  by  the  orders  and  assistance  of  men 
who  have  wearied  the  public  ear  with  the  cease 
less  vaunt  of  their  chivalry ! 

Senators  and  Cabinet  Ministers,  as  well  as 
officers  of  the  army  and  navy,  did  not  scruple 
to  retain  their  posts  for  no  other  reason  than 
the  advantage  it  gave  them  in  striking  a  more 
sure  and  deadly  blow  at  the  heart  of  the  Gov 
ernment  which  had  elevated  them  to  these 
honors.  History,  in  its  most  revolting  chap- 


136  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

ters,  does  not  furnish  a  page  of  deeper  infamy 
than  that  engendered  by  the  madness  of  this 
wicked  zeal  to  destroy.  Perfidy  would  seem 
to  have  risen  to  the  rank  of  a  cardinal  virtue : 
"Tanta  vis  morbi,  uti  tabes^  civium  animos  in- 
vaserat!" 

These  acts,  let  me  repeat,  were  chiefly  the 
forerunners  of  the  deed  of  secession,  perpe 
trated  in  a  time  of  peace,  and  whilst  the  Na 
tional  Government  was  yet  in  the  hands  of  the 
perpetrators,  a  helpless,  compliant,  and  almost 
willing  accessary  to  their  design  ;  when  the 
small  national  army  and  navy  were  scattered 
far  and  wide  ;  when  that  untrained  military 
power  which  sleeps  in  the  bosom  of  the  Re 
public,  and  which  no  peril  had  yet  awakened, 
could  not  possibly  have  been  arrayed  to  meet 
the  emergency ;  when  the  public  mind  was 
palsied  by  the  sudden  stupor  which  this  in 
credible  outrage  had  cast  upon  it.  In  these 
circumstances  was  the  peaceful  process  of  se 
cession  set  on  foot,  and  the  deceived  masses  of 
the  Southern  States  stimulated  into  that  un 
natural  frenzy  which  wildly  hurried  them  into 
a  treason  from  which  retreat  soon  became  im 
possible. 

When  this  drama  of  Secession  came  to  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  137 

stage  of  its  formal  enactment  in  the  passage 
of  the  secession  ordinances,  it  was  character 
ized  by  frauds  only  more  stupendous  than 
those  I  have  described,  because  they  impli 
cated  a  greater  number  of  actors  and  spread 
over  a  wider  surface. 

Whilst  some  of  the  States,  perhaps  a  major 
ity  of  them,  were  in  earnest  in  their  resolve  to 
secede,  the  most  important  States  were  not; 
and  if  the  people  in  these  had  been  left  to 
the  free  expression  of  their  wish  they  would 
have  refused.  The  Convention  of  Virginia 
had  been  elected  by  a  vote  which  was  largely 
against  secession,  and  the  Legislature  which 
authorized  that  Convention  had  taken  care  to 
provide  that  no  ordinance  of  secession  should 
have  any  effect  unless  ratified  by  a  subsequent 
expression  of  the  popular  will  in  the  regular 
election.  When  the  Convention  assembled  at 
Richmond  there  was  a  majority  of  its  members 
opposed  to  the  ordinance.  The  scenes  that 
were  enacted  in  the  sequence  of  the  proceed 
ing  by  which  that  majority  was  reduced  to  a 
minority,  are  only  partially  known  to  the 
country.  Whilst  the  sessions  were  open  to 
the  public  observation  the  majority  held  its 
ground,  but  amidst  what  perils  and  appliances 


138  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

every  inhabitant  of  Richmond  at  that  time 
knows.  The  best  men  of  the  State,  and  there 
were  many,  who  had  dared  to  speak  in  the 
Convention  in  favor  of  the  Union,  were  ex 
posed  to  the  grossest  insults  from  the  mob  that 
filled  the  lobbies,  and  by  whom  they  were  pur 
sued  with  hootings  and  threats  to  their  own 
dwellings.  Still,  no  vote  could  be  got  suffi 
cient  to  carry  the  ordinance.  The  Conven 
tion  then  resolved  to  exclude  the  public  and 
manage  their  work  in  secret  session.  From 
that  day  affairs  took  a  new  turn.  The  commu 
nity  of  Richmond  was  filled  with  strife.  The 
friends  of  the  Union,  both  in  the  Convention 
and  out  of  it,  —  a  large  number  of  persons,  — 
were  plunged  into  the  deepest  anxiety  and 
alarm.  They  felt  that  the  cause  was  lost,  and 
that  the  sentiment  of  the  majority  of  the  State 
would  be  overruled.  Quarrels  arose.  Ardent 
and  reckless  men  were  distempered  with  pas 
sion.  It  was  no  longer  safe  to  discuss  the 
subject  of  the  day  in  the  streets.  The  hotels 
were  filled  with  strangers,  loud,  peremptory, 
and  fierce.  A  friend  of  the  Union  could  not 
mingle  in  these  crowds  without  certainty  of 
insult,  nor  even  sometimes  without  danger  of 
personal  violence.  The  recusant  members  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  139 

the  Convention  were  plied  with  every  expe 
dient  to  enforce  their  submission.  The  weak 
were  derided,  the  timid  bullied,  the  wavering 
cajoled  with  false  promises  and  false  represen 
tations  of  the  state  of  opinion  in  the  country. 
Those  who  could  not  be  reached  by  these  ar 
guments,  but  who  were  found  pliable  to  more 
genial  impulses,  were  assailed  by  flattery,  by 
the  influences  of  friendship,  by  the  blandish 
ments  of  the  dinner-table,  and  finally  carried 
away  by  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  midnight  rev 
elry.  If  the  Convention  had  sat  in  Staunton  or 
Fredericksburg — anywhere  but  in  Richmond — 
no  ordinance  of  secession  would  probably  have 
been  passed.  As  it  was,  it  was  a  work  of  long 
and  sinister  industry  to  bring  it  about.  It  be 
came  necessary  to  fire  the  people  with  new  and 
startling  sensations,  —  to  craze  the  public  mind 
with  excitement.  To  this  end  messages  were 
sent  to  Charleston  to  urge  the  bombardment 
of  Sumter.  The  fort  was  accordingly  assailed 
and  forced  to  surrender,  notwithstanding  an 
assurance  from  the  commander  that  he  could 
not  hold  out  three  days  for  want  of  provisions. 
The  President's  proclamation  calling  out  the 
militia  —  which  was  the  necessary  and  ex 
pected  consequence  of  this  outrage  —  supplied 


140  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

all  the  rage  that  was  wanted.  The  whole 
South  became  ablaze.  Men  lost  all  self-con 
trol,  and  were  ready  to  obey  any  order.  The 
vote  of  the  Convention  had  been  canvassed 
from  time  to  time,  during  this  process  of  ripen 
ing  the  resolution  of  members  for  the  act  of 
secession,  and  it  was  now  found  that  it  might 
be  successfully  put.  It  was  taken  three  days 
after  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter,  and  the 
public  were  told  it  was  carried  by  a  large 
majority.  Subsequent  disclosures  show  that 
upwards  of  fifty  of  its  members  stood  firm  and 
preserved  their  equanimity  in  this  great  tem 
pest  of  passion.  The  scene  at  the  taking  of 
the  vote  is  described  by  one  of  its  members  as 
the  riot  of  a  hospital  of  lunatics. 

The  ratification  of  this  act  was  yet  to  be 
gone  through,  as  prescribed  by  the  law,  in  a 
vote  of  the  people  to  be  taken  in  May.  That 
proceeding  was  substantially  ignored  in  all  that 
followed.  An  appointment  of  members  to  the 
rebel  Congress  was  immediately  made,  to  repre 
sent  the  State  in  the  Provisional  Government 
then  established  at  Montgomery.  The  Presi 
dent  of  the  new  Confederacy  was  forthwith 
invited  to  send  an  army  into  the  State ;  and, 
accordingly,  when  the  month  of  May  arrived, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  141 

troops  were  posted  in  all  those  counties  where 
it  was    supposed   any  considerable  amount  of 
loyalty  to  the  Union  existed  amongst  the  peo 
ple.     The    day  of  election   appointed  for  the 
ratification   found   this  force   stationed  at  the 
polls,  and  the  refractory  people   mastered  and 
quelled  into  silence.     Union  men  were  threat 
ened  in  their  lives  if  they  should  dare  to  vote 
against  the  ordinance ;  and  an  influential  leader 
in  the  movement,  but  recently  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States,  wrote  and  published  a  letter  hint 
ing  to  those  who  might  be  rash  enough  to  vote 
against  secession,  that  they  must  expect  to  be 
driven  out  of  the  State.     Of  course,  the  ratifi 
cation   found  no   opposition    in  any  doubtful 
county.     I  do  not  say  that,  in  a  free  vote,  it 
might  not  have  been  carried.     Harper's  Ferry 
and  the  Gosport  Navy  Yard  had  both,  in  pur 
suance  of  that  policy  of  profitable   sensation- 
making,  been  seized  in  the  interval  after  the 
passage  of  the  ordinance,  and  the  passions  of 
the  people  had  been  still  more  fiercely  wrought 
up  to   a  fury  that  had   banished   all   hope  of 
reflection  ;  but   my  object  is  to  show  that  the 
whole   secession   movement  was   planned  and 
conducted  in  the  spirit  of  headlong  revolution 
and  premeditated  war. 


142  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

In  Tennessee  the  proceeding  was  even  less 
orderly  than  in  Virginia.  In  Missouri  it  was 
no  better.  The  attempt  was  made  to  carry 
Kentucky  and  Maryland  by  the  same  arts  and 
the  same  frauds,  but  utterly  failed.  Maryland 
has  repudiated  secession  and  its  abettors  with  a 
persistent  and  invincible  loyalty.  Kentucky, 
under  severe  trials  and  in  the  actual  contest  of 
civil  war,  has  bravely  and  honorably  preserved 
her  faith  and  repelled  every  assault.  Secession 
has  never  won  an  inch  of  her  soil  that  it  did 
not  temporarily  win  by  the  sword,  and  was  not 
again  forced  to  abandon.  In  not  less  than 
seven  or  eight  elections  has  she  declared  her 
unalterable  fealty  to  the  Union  by  overwhelm 
ing  majorities.  There  has  never  been  the 
smallest  ground  for  a  pretence  of  her  accept 
ance  of  a  place  in  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
where,  nevertheless,  she  is  feigned  to  be  repre 
sented  by  members  in  both  houses  of  the  rebel 
Congress,  —  not  one  of  whom  would  dare  to 
show  himself  openly  in  the  district  he  affects  to 
represent.  We  are  at  a  loss  to  imagine  any 
pretext  to  claim  this  stanch  and  loyal  State  as 
one  in  that  treasonable  fellowship,  unless  it  be 
that,  being  the  birthplace  of  their  President, 
it  was  necessary  to  claim  it  for  the  Confederacy, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  143 

in  order  to  avoid  the  awkward  predicament  of 
having  rewarded,  with  the  highest  honor,  the 
man  who  could,  in  violation  of  the  most  sacred 
principles  of  Southern  chivalry  —  certainly  that 
most  ostentatiously  clamored  in  the  ear  of  the 

world,  as  distinctive  of  the  Southern  cause 

consent  to  draw  his  sword  against  his  own 
State. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  pursue  further  the  his 
tory  of  these  events  as  they  were  developed  in 
the  first  stage  of  this  ferocious  assault  upon  the 
Union.  Those  I  have  brought  into  view  are 
quite  sufficient  to  afford  us  an  unmistakable 
index  to  the  purpose  and  temper  of  the  South 
ern  leaders.  They  denote  rebellion,  and  noth 
ing  but  rebellion,  against  the  lawful  Government 
of  the  United  States,  —  rebellion  conceived  in 
the  bitterest  hostility  and  perpetrated  with  im 
mediate  recourse  to  arms.  They  prove  the  dis 
simulation  of  that  official  challenge  to  the  world 
to  recognize,  in  this  terrible  attack  upon  the 
public  order,  an  honest  assertion  of  a  constitu 
tional  right.  They  cast  an  air  of  shocking 
mockery  over  that  peevish  plaint  which  came 
up  everywhere,  at  that  day,  from  the  depths  of 
the  Secession, —  "  All  we  ask  is,  Let  us  alone  /" 

The  movement  was  revolution, —  an  attempt 


144  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

to  break  to  pieces  an  existing  dynasty  by  force  ; 
and  history  will  so  describe  it.  Let  it  be  meas 
ured  by  the  law  of  Revolution.  If  the  National 
Government  has  grievously  failed  in  its  duty  to 
any  State,  afflicting  it  with  an  irremediable 
wrong,  let  it  be  so  judged  and  the  revolution 
vindicated.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  Union  has  done  them  no  wrong ; 
if  these  complaints  have  grown  out  of  the  mere 
illusion  of  a  heated  fancy ;  still  more,  if  this 
wild  and  reckless  outrage  upon  the  peace  of 
society  has  been  prompted  by  the  insolence  of 
ambition  ;  and  the  credulous  hosts  of  the  South 
have  been  persuaded  by  fraudulent  misrepre 
sentation  to  lift  their  hands  against  the  pater 
nal  and  beneficent  Government  that  has  pro 
tected  them  and  given  them  the  inappreciable 
blessings  of  a  grand  and  powerful  republic  ; 
and,  above  all,  if  the  contrivers  of  this  flagitious 
plot  have  been  pandering  to  the  rival  enmity 
of  the  great  Powers  of  the  earth,  to  win  their 
aid  in  this  parricidal  enterprise,  and  have  sought, 
by  the  unutterable  baseness  of  complicity  with 
them,  to  shear  the  American  people  of  that 
strength  which  has  made  them  and  their  institu 
tions  the  refuge  of  oppressed  Freedom  through 
out  the  world  —  then,  we  say,  let  them  be  held 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  145 

to   the   strict   responsibility  of  that    immense 
crime. 

And,  again,  if  there  really  be  any  consider 
able  portion  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
—  sufficiently  considerable  to  originate  authen 
tic  opinion  —  who  believe  in  the  doctrine  of 
secession  and  are  capable  of  the  enormity  of 
this  revolt  to  bring  it  into  exercise,  then, 
also  for  that  reason,  let  the  war  go  on  until 
every  fibre  of  that  pestilent  heresy  is  cut  out 
and  forever  destroyed  in  the  fire  of  popular 
censure,  that  no  germ  of  it  may  remain  to 
engender  a  new  growth  of  disaster  and  ruin  in 
this  beautiful  garden  of  American  liberty. 


10 


igJjV^--  «**#,- 

Library, 


1  T 


LETTER  VIII. 


CONSPIRACY. 

MARCH,  1864. 

I  OPEN  now  a  curious  chapter  in  the  rebel 
lion,  which  brings  into  view  facts  that  have  not 
been  noticed  as  attentively  as  they  deserve. 
No  complete  history  of  this  great  disturbance 
can  be  written  without  giving  them  a  conspicu 
ous  place  in  the  narrative. 

The  scheme  of  separating  the  States  was  an 
old  design,  almost  as  old,  in  the  meditation  of 
a  class  of  Southern  politicians,  as  the  Union 
itself.  I  have  had  occasion,  in  a  previous  let 
ter,  to  show,  in  a  very  cursory  way,  that  some 
leading  politicians  of  the  South  speculated  on 
such  a  project  upon  the  election  of  the  first 
Northern  President,  the  elder  Adams.  Dis 
union  then  was  "  a  speck  no  larger  than  a 
man's  hand."  The  turn  of  fortune,  which 
gave  to  the  nation  a  succession  of  Virginia 
Presidents  for  twenty-five  years  afterwards, 
temporarily  satisfied  these  malcontents,  and 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  147 

allowed  them,  at  least,  to  tolerate  the  Union 
during  that  happy  period  of  unbroken  Southern 
dominion.  But  it  only  threw  the  policy  of 
separation  into  abeyance;  for  as  soon  as  the 
continuance  of  that  succession  was  interrupted, 
by  the  election  of  the  second  Adams,  the  old 
grief  returned,  and  disunion  once  more  became 
a  muttered  thought.  "  The  speck  "  began  to 
expand  into  a  lurid  cloud,  and  grew  darker  and 
darker  until  it  broke  upon  the  land  in  this  tem 
pest  of  blood  and  fire.  That  it  did  not  sooner 
come  to  a  crisis  is  due  alone  to  the  supple  com 
placency  of  the  Democratic  party.  They  flat 
tered  the  lordly  ambition  of  the  aristocratic 
South,  courted  its  favor,  obeyed  its  behests, 
and  found  a  satisfactory  compensation  in  being 
permitted  to  share  in  the  spoils  of  the  victory 
which  their  alliance  enabled  their  patrons  to 
win.  It  has  always  been  a  sad  and  sore  fact 
for  an  honest  lover  of  his  country  to  contem 
plate —  the  successful  cajolery  with  which  the* 
South  played  off  that  great  party  of  the  North, 
to  make  it  subservient  to  the  selfish  and  sec 
tional  purpose  of  putting  the  whole  Union  at 
the  foot  of  its  slaveholding  master.  The  good 
and  honest  men  of  that  party  see  this  now, 
and  acknowledge  it  with  a  blush  for  the  dupery 


148  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

to  which,  in  the  full  career  of  their  success, 
they  unconsciously  —  we  must  hope  —  suc 
cumbed.  They  were  never  entirely  awakened 
to  this  delusion  until  the  cannon  of  Sumter 
startled  them  from  the  tranquil  enjoyment  of  a 
friendship  which  they  had  found,  through  long 
years,  too  prolific  in  its  rewards  to  allow  a 
question  of  its  sincerity.  But  the  truth  is,  and 
these  good  gentlemen  have  so  found  it,  the 
South  never  had  the  slightest  esteem  for  its 

O 

Northern  comrades,  the  least  respect  for  their 
worth,  or  the  smallest  sympathy  with  their 
opinions.  Nothing  is  stranger  than  that  long 
association  of  the  aristocratic  with  the  demo 
cratic  element  of  the  country  —  "  the  cavalier 
and  the  mud-sill,"  to  adopt  the  elegant  phrase 
of  Southern  speech  —  pigging  it  together  in 
the  same  truckle-bed.  I  do  not  wish  to  dis 
parage  the  intelligence  or  the  patriotism  of  the 
many  excellent  men  who  were  brought  into 
that  equivocal  companionship,  in  which,  doubt 
less,  they  had  persuaded  themselves  that  they 
could  turn  it  to  account  for  the  good  of  the 
country  ;  but  it  must  always  be  hereafter  — 
since  the  events  of  1860  have  opened  their 
eyes  —  a  matter  of  surprise  to  themselves  that 
they  could  have  endured  so  long  in  such  a  rela- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  149 

tion,  made  such  sacrifices  of  personal  indepen 
dence  to  sustain  it,  and  worked  so  diligently  to 
build  up  the  power  and  exalt  the  pride  of  the 
South  at  the  expense  of  the   nation ;  and,  in 
the  end,  to   find  how  little  respect  they  had 
won  from  their  allies,  and  how  little  permanent 
advantage  for  themselves.     Nothing  less  than  ' 
an  extravagant  obliquity  of  sight  or  lamentable 
blindness  could  have  misled  a  party,  so  osten 
tatious  in  its  boast  of  a  distinctive  love  of  the 
people,  to  seek  or  suffer  an  alliance  or  frater 
nity  with  a  school  of  politicians  who  never  dis 
guised  their  contempt  for  the  people,  who  never 
spoke  of  the  North  but  in  terms  of  obloquy, 
and  who  never,  on  the  national  theatre,  pro 
fessed  any  other  policy  than  that  of  absolute 
Southern    domination.       It    is    very    apparent " 
now  that  there  never  was  any  real  democratic 
sentiment  in  the  old  Southern  States,  and  it  is 
a   great   marvel    that   the   Democratic    party 
should  have  been  so  long  in  finding  that  out. 

Southern  feeling  on  this  point  is  very  out 
spoken,  ever  since  the  rebellion  has  forced  it  to 
throw  off  the  disguise  under  which  it  so  long 
but  so  scantly  concealed  its  aversion  to  its  old 
auxiliaries.  I  have  at  hand  a  few  memora 
bilia  which  show  how  contemptuously  Southern 


150  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

men  regarded,  and  even  how  bitterly  they 
detested,  the  allies  they  once  found  so  conven 
ient  to  their  needs,  and  whom  they  only  flat 
tered  as  long  as  they  could  make  them  their 
tools.  When  the  time  arrived  at  which  they 
could  remove  the  mask  and  utter  their  scorn, 
it  was  in  no  stinted  tone  that  they  expressed 
openly  the  sentiment  which  had  before  been 
breathed  only  in  the  confidence  of  private  life. 
The  "  Richmond  Whig  "  of  the  28th  of  May, 
1861,  very  early  in  the  rebellion,  gives  us  a 
sample  of  this  long  pent-up  but  then  explosive 
estimate  of  the  North. 

"  We  "  —  says  this  organ  of  the  ruling  sen 
timent  of  the  seat  of  the  Confederate  Govern 
ment —  "must  bring  these  enfranchised  slaves 
back  to  their  true  condition.  They  have  long 
very  properly  looked  upon  themselves  as  our 
social  inferiors  —  as  our  serfs ;  their  mean, 
niggardly  lives,  their  low,  vulgar,  and  sordid 
occupations  have  ground  this  conviction  into 
them.  But,  of  a  sudden,  they  have  come  to 
imagine  that  their  numerical  strength  gives 
them  power,  and  they  have  burst  the  bonds  of 
servitude  and  are  running  riot  with  more  than 
the  brutal  passions  of  a  liberated  wild  beast. 
Their  uprising  has  all  the  characteristics  of  a 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  151 

ferocious    servile  insurrection We,  of 

the  South,  sought  only  to  separate  our  destiny 
from  theirs,  content  to  leave  them  to  pursue 
their  own  degraded  tastes  and  vicious  appetites, 
as  they  might  choose.  But  they  will  not  leave 
us  this  privilege.  They  force  us  to  subdue 
them  or  be  subdued.  They  give  us  no  alterna 
tive.  They  have  suggested  to  us  the  invasion 
of  their  territory  and  the  robbery  of  their 
banks  and  jewelry-stores.  We  may  profit  by 
the  suggestion  as  far  as  invasion  goes  —  for 
that  will  enable  us  to  restore  them  to  their  nor 
mal  condition  of  vassalage,  and  teach  them  that 
cap  in  hand  is  the  proper  attitude  of  the  servant 
before  his  master."  This  in  May,  1861 ;  when 
no  blow  had  been  struck  but  that  inflicted  by 
their  own  cannon  upon  Sumter,  no  purpose 
indicated  by  the  North  but  that  of  protecting 
the  Government  against  violence,  and  the  res 
toration  of  the  country  to  every  right  which 
had  been  given  to  it  by  the  Constitution. 

This  is  but  a  specimen  of  the  peevish  and 
insane  malice  against  the  Free  States  with 
which  an  influential  class  in  the  South  entered 
into  this  war.  I  could  multiply  examples  of 
the  same  madness,  exhibited  in  the  same  cir 
cles,  from  the  beginning  of  tUe  rebellion  to  the 


152  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

present  day ;  but  I  shall  confine  myself  to 
another  extract  of  later  date,  to  which  I  refer 
only  because  it  has  a  special  significance  to  my 
subject  from  its  having  been  provoked  by  a 
recent  offer  of  friendship  from  a  remnant  of  the 
Northern  Democracy  which,  unmoved  by  the 
bitter  contumely  all  along  heaped  upon  them, 
were  still  willing  to  bow  to  the  rod  lifted  for 
their  chastisement,  and,  with  a  shameful  abne 
gation  of  their  manhood,  to  proffer  a  new  sub 
mission  to  their  imperious  masters.  With  what 
utter  loathing  is  that  advance  repelled,  in  the 
following  notice  of  it  by  the  Government  organ 
of  the  rebel  Confederacy  in  Richmond,  "  The 
Enquirer  "  of  March,  1863.  It  leaves  no  room 
to  doubt  what  portion  of  the  North  was  the 
particular  object  of  Southern  contempt  in  that 
sally  of  vituperation  I  have  quoted  above. 

"  To  be  plain,"  says  this  paper,  in  com 
menting  upon  the  suggestions  of  these  com 
plaisant  friends,  "  we  fear  and  distrust  far 
more  these  apparently  friendly  advances  of  the 
Democrats  than  the  open  atrocity  of  the  phi 
lanthropists  of  Massachusetts.  That  Democratic 
party  always  was  our  worst  enemy,  and,  but  for 
its  poisonous  embrace,  these  States  would  have 
been  free  and  dear  of  the  unnatural  Union 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  153 

twenty  years  ago.  It  is  not  the  Sewards  and 
Sumners,  the  Black  Republicans  and  Abolition 
ists  who  have  hurt  us.  They  were  right  all 
along ;  there  was  '  an  irrepressible  conflict ' 

between  two  different  civilizations If 

we  did  not  discover,  as  soon  as  the  Abolition 
ists,  this  great  truth,  it  was  because  the  Demo 
cratic  party,  neutral  as  it  was  in  principle,  false 
to  both  sides,  and  wholly  indifferent  to  the 
morale  of  either  of  the  opposing  communities, 
placed  itself  between,  raised  the  banner  of 
4  spoils '  —  and  we  all  know  the  rest.  The  idea 
of  that  odious  party  coming  to  life  again  makes 
us  shiver.  Its  foul  breath  is  malaria  ;  its  touch 
is  death." 

Let  us  remark  that  this  diatribe  is  directed  to 
that  branch  of  the  Democratic  party  which  re 
joices  in  the  name  of  Breckinridge.  The  Breck- 
inridge  Democracy,  as  it  is  called,  ever  since 
they  placed  him  at  their  head  as  their  leader, 
are  everywhere,  with  few  exceptions,  the  seces 
sionists  of  the  South  and  their  sympathizers  in 
the  North.  All  other  Democracy  has  proved 
itself  true  and  loyal.  I  could  not  count  a  half 
score  of  those  who  refused  to  go  with  Breckin 
ridge  who  are  not  ardent  supporters  of  the 
Union.  There  may  be  such,  but  I  do  not 


154  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

• 

meet  them.  In  the  main,  the  country  has 
found  no  purer  patriots,  no  more  earnest  and 
steady  friends,  no  braver  or  more  willing  sol 
diers  in  this  war  than  the  Democracy  who  re 
coiled  from  marching  under  that  Breckinridge 
banner  ;  whilst  under  that  banner  are  gathered 
all  the  doubtful  and  all  the  zealous  defenders, 
pursuers,  and  apologists  of  the  rebellion.  The 
schism  has  brought  out  the  sheep  from  the 
goats.  They  are  no  longer  one,  and  the  Dem 
ocratic  party  is  redeemed,  in  the  good  opinion 
of  the  country,  by  this  winnowing  which  has 
cast  all  its  true  patriots  into  their  proper  posi 
tion,  and  left  the  false  in  an  array  which  all 
men  can  see  and  none  mistake.  Now,  looking 
to  this  notorious  fact,  and  measuring  its  import 
by  the  estimate  which  the  South  makes  of  all 
democracy,  and  especially  reflecting  upon  the 
universal  acceptance  of  aristocratic  rule  in  the 
South,  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  sincerity  of 
that  old-time  profession  of  democracy  by  Breck 
inridge  himself,  by  Jefferson  Davis,  by  Toombs, 
and  the  whole  roll  of  Southern  professors  of 
that  repudiated  and  despised  creed  ?  Still  more, 
what  are  we  to  think  of  the  manhood,  the  hon 
esty,  and  the  intelligence  of  that  fragment  of  the 
same  party  in  the  North,  and  their  obsequious 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  155 

truckling  to  the  haughty  guides  of  Southern  re 
bellion  who  "  shiver  "  at  the  proffered  contact  ? 
What  is  to  be  seen  in  this  but  the  basest  spirit 
of  self-seeking  and  longing  for  the  opportunity 
to  make  a  bargain,  in  which  the  only  consider 
ation  that  can  be  offered  is  the  betrayal  of  the 
country  ? 

With  this  brief  glance  at  the  position  held 
by  the  Democratic  party  and  the  power  it  pos 
sessed,  in  combination  with  the  South,  to  con 
trol  the  course  of  political  events,  I  am  now 
prepared  to  take  up  the  principal  topic  of  this 
letter,  —  the  conspiracy  by  which  the  disruption 
of  the  Union  was  supposed  to  be  secured. 

As  long  as  the  Southern  chiefs  were  perfectly 
sure  that  they  could  hold  the  Government  by 
the  aid  of  the  Democratic  party  of  the  Free 
States,  they  were  content  that  things  should 
move  along  in  a  peaceful  current.  But  the 
demonstration  made  by  each  returning  census, 
for  the  last  thirty  years,  of  the  rapid  increase  of 
the  vote  of  the  Free  States,  was,  in  their  appre 
hension,  a  portent  of  evil.  They  saw  in  it  the 
swift  advance  of  the  day  which  was  to  strip 
them  of  that  monopoly  in  the  administration  of 
the  public  affairs  to  which  their  ambition  had 
been  educated,  almost  into  the  conception  of  it 


156  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

as  a  birthright.  Mr.  Calhoun  had  warned 
them  of  the  coming  of  that  day,  and,  in  great 
part,  devoted  his  life  to  the  invention  of  devices 
to  avoid  it.  To  this  end,  he  taught  the  dogma 
of  the  right  of  the  minority  to  control  the 
majority,  even  on  the  broadest  questions  of 
national  policy,  through  the  intervention  of 
State  sovereignty ;  asserted  the  right  of  nullifi 
cation  ;  preached  the  doctrine  of  a  perpetual 
equilibrium  in  the  Government  between  Free 
and  Slave  States  altogether  irrespective  of  the 
growth  of  free  communities  and  of  the  inevitable 
tendency — which  our  whole  history  had  exem 
plified  —  towards  the  increase  of  these  through 
the  operation  of  that  economic  law  which  has 
always  been  driving  slavery  from  North  to 
South.  No  matter  what  disparity  between 
the  population  of  Free  and  Slave  States  these 
changes  might  produce,  it  was  his  theory  that 
the  equilibrium  of  political  power  should  be  pre 
served.  To  secure  this,  he  proposed,  amongst 
other  plans,  a  dual  Presidency,  somewhat  re 
sembling  the  arrangement  of  the  Consulship, 
or  more  after  the  manner  of  that  of  the  Tri 
bunes,  in  the  organism  of  the  Roman  Repub 
lic,  —  one  of  his  Presidents  to  wield  the  Slave 
power,  the  other  the  Free,  and  each  to  be  armed 
with  a  veto  upon  the  legislation  of  Congress. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  157 

The  idea  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  these 
teachings  is  that  which  has  manifested  itself  in 
such  virulent  and  destructive  activity  at  this 
day,  as  a  principle  wholly  incompatible  with 
republican  government  —  that  human  bondage, 
namely,  may  rightfully  be  insisted  upon,  not  as 
a  temporary  arid  accidental  encumbrance,  which 
a  wise  policy  may  endure  and  provide  for  in  its 
transient  state,  but  as  a  necessary  and  whole 
some  incident  of  social  organization,  to  be  main 
tained,  promoted,  and  perpetuated  by  Christian 
statesmanship  as  an  essential  ingredient  of  the 
body  politic,  and  even  —  as  the  later  develop 
ment  of  the  doctrine  explains  it  —  as  "  the 
corner-stone  "  of  free  government.  But  be 
yond  and  above  this  emanation  of  a  barbaric 
philosophy,  and  more  captivating  to  the  South 
ern  mind,  the  sentiment  inculcated  by  this  great 
leader  was  a  jealous  vigilance  to  provide  for 
and  secure,  under  all  contingencies,  the  politi 
cal  ascendency  of  the  South  ;  and  that  ascen 
dency,  through  his  influence,  thus  became  not 
only  the  universal  aspiration  of  the  people  of 
the  Planting  States,  but  a  postulate  which  they 
were  determined  to  elevate  into  a  constitutional 
right.  For  the  maintenance  of  this  right  the 
governing  class  —  often  very  justly  called  the 


158  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

Oligarchy — of  these  States  have  alway  been 
ready  to  dissolve  the  Union  whenever  it  should 
become  apparent  that,  in  the  Union,  they  must 
lose  their  power. 

The  obvious  danger,  in  their  view,  was,  that 
when  the  population  of  the  Free  should  reach 
to  a  preponderating  majority  over  that  of  the 
Slave  States,  the  Democratic  party  would  be 
compelled  to  succumb  to  the  popular  will  of 
the  North,  and  would  not  hesitate,  in  that 
emergency,  to  abandon  their  Southern  support 
for  richer  and  more  abundant  pastures  within 
their  own  geographical  limits ;  that  this  party 
would  bid  a  cheerful  adieu  to  their  old  employ 
ers,  as  soon  as  they  could  find  better  service, 
happy  to  get  rid  of  patrons  whose  gratitude  for 
sacrifices  made  and  favors  bestowed  was  con 
fined  to  the  simple  payment  of  the  wages  of 
the  bargain,  and  never  rose  to  the  height  of  a 
sentiment  of  respect.  Astute  Southern  politi 
cians  always  prophesied  this  event,  and  looked 
without  regret  to  the  day  when  they  would  be 
obliged  to  face  its  approach  and  devise  meas 
ures  to  guard  themselves  against  its  conse 
quences. 

The  Presidential  election  of  1856  was  full  of 
signs  of  this  long-meditated  crisis.  It,  how- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  159 

ever,  passed  over  without  harm :  the  allies 
were  yet  true,  and  the  election  of  Mr.  Bu 
chanan  was  a  Southern  victory.  But  it  soon 
became  apparent  that  the  South  could  never 
gain  another,  —  at  least  without  concessions, 
which,  in  the  Southern  philosophy,  would  be 
more  disagreeable  than  a  defeat.  The  leading 
men  of  the  South,  in  fact,  regarded  that  as  the 
last  election  that  would  ever  occur  under  the 
Constitution  and  Union  ;  and,  from  that  day, 
an  active  conspiracy  was  contrived  and  set  in 
motion  to  accomplish  the  object  which  many 
had  long  wished  and  many  more  had  long 
feared. 

I  call  it  a  conspiracy  because  it  was  the 
secret  plot  of  influential  and  managing  men  to 
compass  a  design  which  was  quite  impossible  of 
achievement  by  open  and  honest  appeal  to  the 
people.  The  good  sense  and  natural  affection 
of  the  Southern  masses  would  have  recoiled 
from  a  plot  for  disunion  at  any  time,  up  to  the 
day  of  the  first  act  of  secession,  if  they  had 
been  openly  invoked  to  such  an  enterprise.  It 
required  both  time  and  skill  "  to  fire  the  South 
ern  heart  and  instruct  the  Southern  mind  "  for 
this  venture.  And  I  think  I  may  add  that, 
even  now,  after  three  years  of  terrible  conflict, 


160  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

a  large  amount  of  Southern  heart  remains  yet 
unfired  to  that  dread  crime,  still  more  of  South 
ern  mind  —  if  it  dared  speak  its  secret  —  yet 
wholly  uninstructed  in  the  necessity  or  the 
right  of  this  desolating  revolution. 

In  the  interval  between  1856  and  1860,  the 
great  problem  which  engaged  the  mind  of  the 
plotters  was,  how  to  frustrate  the  Democratic 
party  of  the  North,  which  had  already  found  a 
formidable  candidate  in  Mr.  Douglas.  The 
difficulty  presented  by  that  problem  was  sur 
mounted  in  the  manner  which  it  is  now  my 
purpose  to  describe. 

The  chief  element  of  the  plot  was  the  neces 
sity  of  sundering  that  party  by  such  a  blow  as 
should  forever  separate  its.  Union-supporting 
section  from  those  who  could  be  persuaded  to 
destroy  the  Union  —  a  separation  which,  it  was 
supposed,  would  finally  gravitate  into  a  specific 
division  of  the  Northern  and  Southern  mem 
bers.  The  great  and  desired  effect  of  this 
schism  would  be  to  nullify  the  power  of 
the  party  in  the  coming  election,  insure  its 
defeat,  and  render  the  election  of  the  North 
ern  candidate  a  certain  result.  This  was  the 
theory  of  the  movement.  It  was  particu 
larly  important  that  Mr.  Douglas  should  be 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  161 

defeated,  but  also  important  that  he  should  be 
nominated  and  kept  in  the  field  by  his  friends. 
The  party  was  quite  strong  enough  to  elect  its 
candidate  if  it  should  be  allowed  to  unite  its 
vote  upon  one  name.  The  tactics  of  the  oc 
casion  required  two  candidates.  To  produce, 
therefore,  an  effective  and  irreconcilable  divis 
ion,  it  was  necessary  to  introduce  some  new 
and  repulsive  item  into  the  programme  of  the 
Democratic  policy  ;  something  that  would  be 
sure  to  produce  an  explosion. 

The  slave  question,  as  usual,  furnished  the 
theme  for  disturbance.  The  party  was  already 
dividing  on  the  doctrine  touching  the  extension 
of  slavery  into  the  Territories  and  the  alleged 
duty  of  the  Government  to  protect  it  there. 
There  was  much  quarrel  on  this  point,  and  the 
North  was  giving  some  evidence  of  making 
a  stand  against  the  Southern  demand.  Mr. 
Douglas  and  his  friends  were  very  stanch  in 
resistance,  and  their  cause  was  growing  obsti 
nate  in  the  Free  States,  whilst  it  had  no  little 
amount  of  support  in  the  others.  The  leaders 
of  the  plot  were  not  altogether  sure  that  they 
might  not  lose  the  hoped-for  division  of  the 
party,  on  this  point  of  protection  of  slavery  in 
the  Territories,  by  some  compromise  of  opin- 
11 


162  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

ion,  of  which  they  had  frequent  example  in  pre 
vious  canvasses :  the  North  might  yield  some 
thing,  or  a  considerable  force  from  the  South 
might  fall  in,  —  and  so  make  a  strong  party 
again.  It  became,  therefore,  necessary  to  sup 
ply  a  fresh  ground  of  dissension.  This  was 
found  in  a  demand  for  the  renewal  of  the  Afri 
can  slave-trade.  If  the  party  could  be  put 
under  the  opprobrium  of  the  slightest  suspicion 
of  that  design,  it  was  manifest  that  no  Free- 
State  Democrat  could  incur  it  and  live.  The 
party  of  the  North  could  go  very  far,  as  they 
had  heretofore  gone,  in  defending  and  protect 
ing  slavery,  but  the  revival  of  the  slave-trade 
could  not  possibly  sit  upon  any  Northern  stom 
ach.  This,  then,  was  the  card  to  be  played. 

Accordingly,  in  the  years  1858  and  1859, 
ground  was  broken  in  this  new  campaign.  The 
right  and  purpose  to  revive  the  African  slave- 
trade  was  broached  to  the  people  of  the  South, 
with  an  intrepidity  never  equalled  in  the  ex 
ploits  of  the  boldest  demagogues  of  any  coun 
try.  The  press  put  out  its  feelers  on  this  point, 
and  orators  of  note  descanted  upon  it  with  a 
startling  audacity.  In  the  lead  of  these  was 
Mr.  Yancey,  who  both  wrote  and  spoke  with 
great  effect  upon  the  subject ;  and  the  question, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  163 

thus  thrown  open  to  public  advocacy,  found 
many  champions  and  more  friends.  In  the 
summer  of  1859  consultations  were  held  at  the 
White  Sulphur  Springs  of  Virginia,  where 
several  prominent  leaders  had  gathered  together 
to  devise  plans  for  giving  full  significance  and 
currency  to  the  movement.  Soon  afterwards, 
the  subalterns  who  were  accustomed  to  light 
their  lanterns  from  the  fire  of  the  greater  lights, 
were  put  in  motion  to  circulate  and  extend  the 
new  doctrine,  and  these  took  their  instructions, 
not  only  without  reluctance,  but  with  that 
ready  consent  which,  to  an  observant  specta 
tor,  was  evidence  of  a  preconcerted  scheme 
that  only  awaited  the  order  of  promulgation  to 
become  the  experimental  strategy  of  a  party. 

It  was  remarkable  that  this  assault  upon  the 
honor  of  the  South  brought  none  of  those  indig 
nant  protests  which  we  have  heard  in  old  time 
against  the  enormity  of  the  slave-trade,  —  the 
very  mention  of  which  was  formerly  wont  to 
produce  a  shudder  of  disgust.  Some  few 
old-fashioned  people  and  old-fashioned  presses 
might  have  uttered  a  feeble  remonstrance, 
but  these  were  lost  or  silenced  in  the  inde 
cent  license  with  which  the  public  mind  was 
abused  by  the  shameless  defence  of  the  pro- 


164  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

position,  both  in  the  written  an4  oral  discus 
sions  of  the  period.  This  unchallenged  bold 
ness  and  this  singular  silence  of  reproof  were 
most  expressive  and  fearful  omens,  to  any 
one  who  could  fully  interpret  their  import,  of 
the  calamity  that  was  then  brooding  over  the 
land.  It  was  very  strange  to  see  how  little  these 
omens  were  heeded  by  the  Government,  still 
more,  how  feebly  they  awakened  the  attention 
of  the  Northern  Democracy.  Not  even  at 
Charleston,  where  that  Democracy  was  subse 
quently  assembled  in  Convention,  did  its  repre 
sentatives  give  any  sign  that  they  truly  under 
stood  or  appreciated  the  dangers  which  lay,  as 
in  a  mine,  beneath  their  feet. 

Whilst  the  Southern  public  was  thus  becom 
ing  familiarized  to  this  disgraceful  scheme  by 
popular  harangues,  other  agencies  were  at  work 
to  further  the  cause  by  practical  experiment. 
Southern  citizens  of  note  embarked  in  the  trade  ; 
ships  were  fitted  out  and  dispatched  to  the  Afri 
can  coast ;  and,  for  the  first  time  in  fifty  years, 
the  Atlantic  shore  of  the  Southern  States  was 
polluted  by  the  landing  of  cargoes  of  slaves  di 
rect  from  Africa.  The  trade  could  scarcely  be 
called  clandestine,  with  so  little  concealment 
was  it  practised.  The  whole  population  seemed 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  165 

to  be  implicated  in  saving  the  trangressors  from 
molestation  and  in  aiding  the  distribution  of 
the  cargoes.  The  victims  of  this  piracy  were 
openly  introduced  on  the  plantations,  and  a 
general  complicity  rendered  futile  the  attempts 
of  the  Government  —  very  weak  and  faltering 
it  is  true  —  to  recover  them. 

We  can  hardly  credit  this  singular  change  in 
the  morale  of  Southern  society  when  we  read 
the  accounts  of  the  day  which  give  us  the 
details  of  this  trade.  South  Carolina  seemed 
to  have  gone  mad  on  the  subject.  Amongst 
other  incidents  I  find  this,  as  published  in  the 
"Cheraw  Gazette":  A  Col.  Hunt  had  adver 
tised,  by  way  of  encouraging  this  laudable  spirit 
of  enterprise,  a  reward,  to  be  given  by  him,  of 
a  silver  pitcher  for  the  best  specimen  of  a  native 
African  negro,  to  be  produced  at  an  appointed 
time  and  place  for  inspection  ;  and  the  "  Ga 
zette,"  with  something  like  gleeful  satisfaction, 
informs  its  readers  that  two  boys  were  exhib 
ited,  to  the  owner  of  whom  the  prize  was  ad 
judged.  They  are  described  with  the  tact  of 
a  connoisseur,  as  remarkably  healthy  and  intel 
ligent,  —  so  intelligent  that  one  of  them  had 
already  learned  to  say  "  wo  "  when  he  wanted 
to  stop  a  horse.  This  whole  affair  was  un- 


166  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

doubtedly  nothing  less  than  a  bravado  to 
express  derision  and  defiance  to  the  Govern 
ment  and  to  the  general  sentiment  of  the  Free 
States,  which  the  recent  importations  of  slaves 
had  offended ;  and  was,  in  its  way,  a  step  to 
wards  that  hideous  rebellion  which  is  now  vis 
iting  retribution  upon  the  very  actors  in  that 
scene. 

Every  one  remembers  the  farce  of  the  prose 
cution,  in  the  South,  of  some  of  the  parties 
engaged  in  this  iniquitous  attempt  to  revive  the 
trade.  According  to  a  statement  I  have  seen, 
from  a  paper  published  either  in  Charleston  or 
Savannah,  —  I  forget  which,  —  some  of  the 
persons  arrested  and  waiting  in  prison  for  trial 
were  temporarily  released  on  parole,  to  enable 
them  to  attend  a  political  convention  some  hun 
dred  miles  off. 

When  one  of  these  cases  came  before  the 
court  for  trial,  Judge  Magrath,  according  to 
the  published  reports  of  the  day,  gave  a  very 
encouraging  lift  to  the  friends  of  the  trade,  by 
an  exposition  of  the  law  which,  if  not  ingen 
ious,  was  at  least  new,  and  was  certainly  a 
very  courageous  onset  against  that  once-uni 
versal  sentiment  of  the  country,  which  was 
wont  to  boast  that  an  American  Congress  was 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  167 

the  first  power  in  the  world  that  had  vindi 
cated  the  honor  of  humanity  by  branding  the 
slave-trade  as  piracy.  The  import  of  this  ju 
dicial  exposition,  as  stated  in  the  Southern 
papers,  was  that  slaves  purchased  abroad  by  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States  were  property, 
and  were  entitled  to  the  same  protection  "  on 
the  high  seas  "  as  any  other  American  prop 
erty.  If  they  were  purchased,  bona  fide,  in 
Africa,  —  not  stolen  or  kidnapped,  —  the  Gov 
ernment  had  no  right  to  molest  the  owner,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  was  bound  to  protect  him ; 
and  that  the  Act  of  Congress  which  declared 
the  trade  piracy  could  not  be  construed  to 
apply  to  such  an  importation ;  in  that  applica 
tion  it  would  be  unconstitutional  and  void. 

Upon  this  decision,  I  believe,  the  party  ac 
cused  was  acquitted.  I  regret  that  I  have  not 
recourse  to  a  report  of  the  trial  to  allow  me  to 
speak  more  precisely  of  its  incidents.  But  the 
prominent  and  most  noteworthy  feature  of  the 
opinion  of  the  court,  as  given  in  the  current 
news  of  the  time,  was  the  assertion  of  a  right 
to  the  protection  of  this  property  "  on  the  high 
seas." 

Not  long  after  this  trial,  the  Charleston  Con 
vention  assembled,  with  a  full  representation  of 


168  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

both  extremes  of  the  Democratic  party.  Its 
ostensible  purpose  was  to  nominate  a  candidate 
for  the  Presidency.  The  use  intended  to  be 
made  of  it  by  the  Southern  managers  of  the 
plot  —  some  of  the  chief  of  which  were  not  of 
the  body,  but  outside  members,  holding  the 
wires  in  their  hands,  watchers  and  advisers  — 
was  to  consummate  that  feat  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  —  the  dismemberment  of  the  party. 

Of  all  the  tricks  of  political  legerdemain  we 
have  ever  seen,  this  was  the  most  dexterous,  — 
this  exploit  of  cutting  a  body  in  two  and  set 
ting  the  severed  halves  into  a  battle  in  which 
both  were  sure  to  be  demolished.  The  neat 
ness  of  the  tour  de  j}asse  was  not  so  much  in 
the  division  —  for  that  had  been  often  per 
formed  before  —  as  in  the  skill  with  which 
the  fragments  were  set  in  mortal  array  against 
each  other.  I  will  endeavor  to  point  out  some 
salient  strokes  by  which  this  was  accomplished, 
as  I  trace  them  through  the  published  proceed 
ings  of  the  Convention. 

When  this  body  assembled  in  April  there 
was,  as  I  have  remarked,  a  clear  majority 
for  Mr.  Douglas.  He  and  his  friends  rested 
mainly  upon  the  position  of  the  Cincinnati 
platform  of  1856.  They  had  been  stationary 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  169 

whilst  the  tide  of  Southern  sentiment  had  been 
sweeping  on  in  the  current  I  have  described. 
The  Cincinnati  platform  maintained  Squatter- 
sovereignty,  as  it  was  called,  —  which  was  a  pro 
test  against  any  intervention  of  the  National 
Government  on  the  question  of  slavery:  the 
Government  was  neither  to  mar  nor  make. 
It  is  worthy  of  remark  that,  in  1856,  certain 
hot-heads  of  the  South,  those  present  in  the 
Convention,  insisted  upon  this  non-interven 
tion  with  all  that  angry  zeal  which  is  charac 
teristic  of  the  fire-eater,  threatening  to  retire 
from  the  Convention  and  to  raise  the  old  spec 
tre  of  secession  if  it  should  be  refused. 

Four  years  had  swept  away  that  humor, 
and  the  demand  of  the  same  men  was  now 
reversed.  It  was  now  for  extreme  interven 
tion,  challenged  upon  pain  of  immediate  rup 
ture,  and,  as  usual,  of  peremptory  resort  to  the 
demolition  of  the  Union. 

In  justice  to  the  general  character  and  com 
position  of  the  Charleston  Convention,  it  is 
proper  to  say,  there  is  no  room  to  doubt  that 
nine  out  of  ten  of  its  members  went  into  it 
with  no  other  expectation  than  that  of  ac- 
:omplishing  a  Presidential  nomination,  and  of 
standing  by  it,  in  good  faith,  throughout  the 


170  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

election ;  that  they  knew  as  little  as  the  out 
side  world  of  the  scheme  that  was  hatching. 
From  all  the  evidence  furnished  by  the  his 
tory  of  their  proceedings,  from  what  we  know 
of  the  men,  and  from  what  we  have  seen  of 
the  eminent  devotion  of  many  of  the  most  con 
spicuous  members  to  the  cause  of  the  coun 
try  in  its  recent  trials,  we  must  believe  that, 
if  any  of  the  large  majority  of  that  body  had 
penetrated  the  real  design  of  which  it  was  at 
tempted  to  make  them  the  dupes,  they  would 
have  denounced  it  with  an  emphasis  that 
would  probably  have  saved  the  nation  from 
these  three  years  of  bloody  feud  and  all  the 
misery  that  is  yet  to  follow.  This  remark  is 
confined  to  no  sectional  division  of  the  Con 
vention.  There  is  proof  enough  to  show  that, 
in  the  Southern  delegations,  as  well  as  in  the 
Northern,  there  were  numbers  of  considerate 
men  whose  conduct  was  guided  by  patriotic 
views  and  true  devotion  to  the  Union.  Un 
fortunately,  the  issues  of  the  time  were  not  in 
their  hands.  The  plot  which  frustrated  their 
hopes  was  secret,  known  to  few,  and  even  now 
imperfectly  understood. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  were  not 
many  members  in  that  Convention  who  were 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  171 

not  fully  alive  to  the  mischief  which  was  likely 
to  ensue  from  the  division  growing  out  of  the 
opposition  to  the  principles  upon  which  the 
nomination  of  Mr.  Douglas  was  insisted  upon. 
The  speeches  of  the  occasion  bear  witness  to  a 
lively  apprehension  on  that  score.  But  I  find 
nothing  to  indicate  even  a  suspicion  of  a  pre 
meditated  design  —  which  was  the  real  object 
of  the  conspiracy  —  to  promote  this  division  for 
the  purpose  of  procuring  a  defeat  to  the  candi 
dates  of  both  sides  of  the  party,  and,  by  that 
means,  to  secure  the  election  of  the  Republican 
nominee,  as  the  necessary  condition  of  the  casus 
belli  upon  which  the  rebellion  was  predicated. 

The  plan  was  to  drive  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Douglas  in  the  Convention  into  a  separate 
organization,  by  the  promulgation  of  a  pro 
gramme  of  the  party  policy  which  should  as 
sert  principles  he  could  not  adopt  and  which 
the  people  of  the  North  and  West  could  never 
tolerate ;  and,  if  that  programme  was  rejected 
by  the  Convention,  to  form  a  new  party  upon 
it.  To  this  end  a  Committee  was  appointed  to 
report  the  platform  of  the  party.  By  some 
means,  which  do  not  appear,  that  Committee 
was  composed  of  a  majority  in  favor  of  the 
ultra  Southern  view.  In  the  main  body  of 


172  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

the  Convention  many  resolutions  were  sever 
ally  offered  looking  to  the  construction  of  the 
platform ;  and  these  were  referred,  as  often  as 
they  were  presented,  to  the  Committee,  either 
with  or  without  instructions,  as  the  case  hap 
pened. 

The  prominent  and  distinctive  question  in 
dispute  was  The  protection  of  Slavery  in  the 
Territories  by  the  intervention  of  the  National 
Government. 

It  was  manifestly  the  purpose  of  certain 
members  of  the  Convention,  aided  by  outside 
advisers  who  were  busy  in  fomenting  the  dis 
cord  of  the  body,  to  get  into  the  declaration 
of  the  duty  of  protection,  a  covert  recognition 
of  the  slave-trade,  in  accord  with  the  judicial 
opinion  of  Judge  Magrath.  This  purpose  first 
appears  in  the  phrase  of  a  resolution  offered  by 
a  gentleman  from  Alabama,  —  "  That  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Government  to  afford  legal  protec 
tion  to  all  classes  of  property,  slave  or  otherwise, 
in  the  Territories,  or  on  the  High  Seas" 

After  some  delay  and  amidst  much  variety 
of  movement,  the  same  idea  comes  up  in  the 
resolution  of  another  member,  in  which  the 
phrase  is  significantly  altered :  "legal"  protec 
tion  is  left  out;  the  term  "slave"  is  omitted, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  173 

and  another  clause  inserted  ;  it  reads :  "  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  Government  to  protect  the 
rights  of  persons  and  property  on  the  High  Seas, 
in  the  Territories,  or  wherever  else  its  consti 
tutional  authority  extends."  Thereupon  Gen. 
Butler,  of  Massachusetts,  —  now  distinguished 
in  a  very  different  sphere  of  action,  —  gives  a 
pertinent  hint  that  this  phrase,  of  protection  of 
property  on  the  seas,  might  be  construed  into  a 
design  to  reopen  the  slave-trade. 

The  resolution  then  goes  to  the  Committee. 
There,  it  is  found  that  there  is  a  majority  of 
one  in  its  favor.  The  vote  is  17  to  16, — upon 
which  there  is  much  secret  rejoicing  amongst 
the  conspirators,  and  stealthy  consultation  with 
Mephistopheles  behind  the  screen.  After  fur 
ther  deliberation,  the  Committee  make  up  their 
report,  and  this  article  of  the  programme  finally 
emerges  to  the  view  of  the  Convention  in  some 
what  modified  form.  It  now  appears  in  the 
resolutions  in  this  language :  — 

"  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Federal  Gov 
ernment,  in  all  its  departments,  to  protect  the 
rights  of  persons  and  property  in  the  Territo 
ries,  and  wherever  else  its  constitutional  author 
ity  extends." 

The  words  "  on  the  high  seas  "  are  discarded, 


174  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

and  the  periphrase  retained  which  legally  cov 
ers  the  same  proposition.  Gen.  Butler's  hint 
had  manifestly  awakened  some  solicitude,  and 
it  was  thought  necessary  not  to  name  the  broad 
ocean,  lest  members  should  become  alarmed. 
The  mass  of  the  Convention,  as  well  as  that 
of  the  country  at  large,  was  engaged  with  the 
question  of  protection  of  slavery  in  the  Territo 
ries  :  the  "  wherever  else "  of  the  resolution 
might  pass  as  an  expletive,  in  which  the  un 
wary  might  see  no  harm,  or  it  covered  the 
District  of  Columbia  and  the  Forts,  and  so 
might  escape  immediate  observation.  The 
masters  of  the  plot  were  aiming  at  the  pos 
session  of  a  weapon  for  future  use,  which,  in 
due  time,  they  could  bring  into  service.  They 
wanted  the  ratification  of  the  principle  affirmed 
by  Judge  Magrath ;  and  they  got  it.  If  this 
programme  were  adopted,  what  more  distinct 
sanction  could  be  given  to  the  slave-trade  ? 
What  more  certain  than  the  defeat  of  any 
Presidential  candidate  who  should  stand  upon 
it? 

This  was  now  the  majority  report.  There 
were  two  minority  reports.  The  larger  of 
the  two  reaffirmed  the  Cincinnati  platform  of 
1856,  with  some  additions  on  other  questions 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  175 

of  policy.  The  other  was  made  by  Gen.  But 
ler  alone,  and  presented  the  Cincinnati  plat 
form,  pure  and  simple,  without  any  addition. 

Upon  these  several  reports  a  most  earnest 
debate  arose.  Members  grew  angry,  and  it 
was  very  evident  that  the  party  was  broken, 
and  the  plot  in  full  career  of  successful  achieve 
ment.  Strong  appeals  were  addressed  to  the 
mischief-making  members,  prefiguring  the  re 
sult  of  this  quarrel  and  warning  against  it. 
Governor  King,  of  Missouri,  declared  "that 
this  platform  would  nominate  Mr.  Seward 
[then  the  presumed  candidate  of  the  Repub 
lican  party]  and  make  him  President." 

Mr.  Paine,  of  Ohio,  "charged  them  to  re 
flect,  to  pause  in  their  mad  career ;  to  remem 
ber  in  advance  what  the  consequence  of  a  dis 
ruption  would  be,  and  they  would  see  how  justly 
the  consequences  ivould  be  laid  on  the  South" 

To  these  warnings,  and  others  in  the  same 
tone,  Mr.  Yancey  replied,  "that  the  Demo 
cratic  party  must  accept  defeat  with  cheer 
fulness  on  a  principle  rather  than  seek  success 
with  its  violation."  He  concluded  his  speech, 
says  the  report,  "  by  eloquently  urging  the 
Southern  delegates  to  be  true  to  their  consti 
tutional  duty,  and  not  to  lend  themselves  to  a 


176  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

palpable  wrong  to  obtain  a  present  victory." 
This  "  palpable  wrong,"  let  it  be  noted,  was 
nothing  more  than  an  adherence  to  the  prin 
ciples  asserted  by  the  Cincinnati  Convention 
of  1856,  in  which  he  and  several  of  his  com 
rades  threatened  secession  and  disunion  if  the 
doctrine  he  was  now  repudiating  were  not 
adopted. 

The  great  result  for  which  he  and  others 
were  struggling  was  the  overthrow  of  the 
party  and  the  success  of  the  Republican  ticket. 
This  feat  was  now  on  the  eve  of  accomplish 
ment. 

The  Convention,  soon  after  this,  came  to 
a  vote.  The  majority  report  was  rejected  by 
165  yeas  to  138  nays.  Thereupon  a  great  stir 
arose.  The  Convention  got  into  the  condition 
of  a  beehive  in  commotion.  In  a  little  while 
a  series  of  abdications  began,  and,  before  an 
hour  had  passed,  the  greater  part  of  the  South 
ern  members  had  retired  in  dudgeon.  The 
egg  was  hatched  ;  the  breach  was  mortal. 
From  that  hour  the  Democratic  party  was  an 
effete  corporation,  and  the  seed  of  secession 
was  deeply  planted  in  a  rank  soil,  quickly  to 
bourgeon  into  a  Upas-tree  of  treason  and  re 
bellion,  and  to  distil  tears  and  blood  over  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS,  177 

happiest  and  most  prosperous  nation  in  the 
world. 

How  this  breach  was  followed  up  by  the  or 
ganization  of  the  fragments  into  separate  bodies ; 
by  adjournment  to  Baltimore  and  Richmond, 
and  subsequent  assemblage  of  both  divisions,  at 
the  former  city,  in  June ;  by  further  abdications 
there  ;  by  continually  widening  dissension  ;  by 
nomination  of  Douglas  on  one  side  and  Breck- 
inridge  on  the  other ;  and  then,  in  due  course, 
by  signal  defeat  of  both  in  the  election,  and  con 
sequent  accomplishment  of  the  desired  success 
of  the  Republican  party,  need  not  be  told.  All 
that  has  gone  into  the  record  of  our  melancholy 
history,  where  it  will  remain  forever  to  rebuke 
and  frighten  wicked  ambition  in  all  future  time. 

I  cannot,  however,  close  this  narrative  with 
out  availing  myself  of  a  remarkable  commen 
tary  upon  these  events,  supplied  to  my  hand  by 
the  speech  of  one  of  the  most  intelligent  actors 
in  the  scene,  and  one  of  the  most  acute  of  its 
expositors. 

On  the  23d  of  June,  1860,  when  the  scat 
tered  Convention  was  again  assembled  at 
Baltimore,  and  the  last  abdication  took  place, 
Pierre  Soule*  spoke  these  words :  — 

"I  am   not  at  all  discouraged  by  the   emotion 
12 


178  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

which  has  been  attempted  to  be  created  in  this 
body  by  those  who  have  seceded  from  it.  We, 
from  the  furthest  South,  were  prepared.  We  had 
heard  around  us  the  rumors  which  were  to  be  initia 
tory  of  the  acts  which  you  have  witnessed  this  day, 
and  we  knew  that  the  conspiracy,  which  had  been 
brooding  for  months  past,  would  break  out  on  this 
occasion,  and  for  the  purposes  which  are  obvious  to 
every  member.  Sirs,  there  are  in  political  life  men 
who  were  once  possessed  of  popular  favor,  and  who 
considered  that  favor  as  an  inalienable  property, 
and  who  cling  to  it  as  something  that  can  no  longer 

be  wrested  from  their  hands They  saw  that 

the  popular  vote  was  clearly  manifesting  to  this 
glorious  nation  who  was  to  be  their  next  ruler. 
More  than  eight  or  ten  months  before  the  Con 
vention  assembled  the  name  of  that  future  ruler 
(Douglas)  had  been  thrown  into  the  canvass  and 
was  before  the  people.  Instead  of  bringing  a  can 
didate  to  oppose  him  ;  instead  of  creating  before  the 
people  issues  upon  which  the  choice  of  the  nation 
could  be  enlightened ;  instead  of  principles  discussed, 
what  have  we  seen  ?  An  unrelenting  war  against 
the  individual  presumed  to  be  the  favorite  of  the 
nation,  —  a  war  waged  by  an  army  of  unprincipled 
and  unscrupulous  politicians,  leagued  with  a  power 
which  could  not  be  exerted  on  their  side  without  dis 
gracing  itself  and  disgracing  the  nation. 

"When  the  Convention  assembled  at  Charles- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  179 

ton,  the  idea  had  not  yet  struck  their  minds  that 
a  movement,  of  the  nature  of  the  one  which  has 
been  effected,  could  be  based  upon  the  doctrines 
of  the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Alabama,  Mr. 
Yancey,  who  has  fathered  this  secession.  It  was 
presumed  by  those  political  intriguers  outside  of 
the  Convention  who  were  manoeuvring  the  measures 
through,  by  which  the  destruction  of  the  Democratic 
party  was  to  be  effected,  —  it  was  presumed  by  them 
that  it  laid  in  their  power,  after  raising  the  storm, 
to  manage  and  guide  it.  But  it  will  be  found,  be 
fore  forty-eight  hours  have  elapsed,  that  in  that 
storm  they  are  bound  eventually  to  sink  and  dis 
appear.  For  it  is  idle  for  Southern  men  to  disguise 
the  true  object  of  that  movement :  Secession  from  the 
Democratic  party  can  be  nothing  else  than  the  dis 
ruption  of  that  party  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
hopes  of  the  whole  nation  are  hanging  on  its  con 
tinuing  in  power.  Secession  is  a  word  intended 
to  conceal  another  word  of  more  significancy.  If 
secession  was  to  find  an  echo  amongst  the  people 
of  this  great  Confederacy,  then  no  longer  could  this 
republic  boast  that  the  structure  which  its  fathers 
created  with  so  much  sacrifice  and  so  much  toil  was 
a  noble  experiment.  Secession  must  beget  disunion. 
Upon  what  pretence  must  secession  have  been  pre 
dicted  ?  I  wish  not  to  do  those  distinguished  gen 
tlemen,  who  stepped  out  of  this  room  this  morning, 
the  injustice  to  suppose  that  they  truly  parted  from 


180  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

you  because  of  your  having  decided  the  question  of 
internal  organization  in  a  manner  that  did  not  agree 
with  their  views.  They  may  give  this  as  a  pre 
tence.  They  may  use  it  as  a  cloak  to  cover  their 
desertion  from  the  party,  —  but  the  truth  cannot  be 
disguised:  whether  deluded  or  not,  they  are  tools  in 
the  hands  of  intriguers  and  their  course  must  neces 
sarily  tend  to  disunion." 

This  is  the  speech  of  Mr.  Soule*  when  the 
Democratic  party,  having  received  the  first 
blow  of  severance  at  Charleston,  had  reassem 
bled  in  divided  fragments  at  Baltimore,  and 
there  completed  the  dismemberment  by  retire 
ment,  from  the  major  body,  of  the  remaining 
few  who  had  hesitated  at  Charleston.  The 
contumacious  fragment  formed  a  separate  or 
ganization,  adopted  the  majority  resolutions 
which  had  been  rejected  at  Charleston,  and 
nominated  Mr.  Breckinridge,  a  man  of  such 
popularity,  especially  in  the  Border  States,  as, 
in  the  estimate  of  the  conspirators,  would  be 
certain  to  draw  off  a  vote  large  enough  to 
make  the  division  of  the  party  fatal  to  the 
success  of  either  candidate.  Breckinridge  thus 
became  the  representative  and  symbol  of  the 
conspiracy,  and  the  Breckinridge  Democracy, 
wherever  you  find  it,  North,  South,  East,  or 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  181 

West,  the  very  bone  and  sinew  of  the  revolu 
tion. 

I  ask  you  to  review  this  chain  of  facts  in  the 
light  of  preparatives  to  the  rebellion. 

First.  We  have  seen  that  extraordinary  and 
sudden  zeal  of  certain  leading  Southern  men  to 
revive  the  African  slave-trade  as  a  topic  of  dis 
cussion. 

Second.  The  bold  enterprise  of  Southern 
citizens  in  the  actual  pursuit  of  the  trade, 
the  successful  importation  of  slaves,  and  the 
distribution  and  concealment  of  them  by  the 
connivance  of  planters,  and  even  the  derisive 
ostentation  with  which  the  trade  was  confessed 
and  public  opinion  defied  by  the  more  zealous 
and  intemperate  of  its  advocates. 

Third.  The  decision  of  the  South  Carolina 
judge,  and  the  remarkable  sympathy  of  the 
community  with  those  arraigned,  and  their 
immunity  from  punishment,  or  even  social 
censure. 

Fourth.  The  covert  attempt  to  affirm  the 
principles  of  that  decision  in  the  Convention. 

Fifth.  The  preordained  breach  of  the  party 
and  the  retirement  of  that  portion  of  the  South 
ern  members  who  were  afterwards  the  most 
earnest  and  zealous  prompters  and  champions 
of  the  rebellion  ;  and, 


182  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

Last,  Their  organization  of  a  new  party ; 
the  nomination  of  a  candidate  whose  popular 
ity  was  a  sure  obstruction  to  the  success  of  his 
rival,  and  a  guarantee  for  the  election  of  the 
Republican  candidate,  —  in  which  event  the 
casus  belli  of  the  projected  revolution  rested. 

When  the  groundwork  of  the  rebellion  was 
thus  laid,  every  man  who  was  implicated  in 
the  plot  took  his  place.  The  great  fact  upon 
which  the  dissolution  was  predicated  being 
thus  made  sure,  it  was  forthwith  announced 
in  a  thousand  bar-rooms,  in  the  resolutions  of 
numerous  popular  assemblies,  in  the  harangues 
of  countless  orators,  and  in  every  Southern 
press  under  the  control  of  the  conspirators, 
that  if  the  Republican  candidate  should  be 
elected  the  South  would  withdraw  from  the 
Union.  Thus,  months  before  the  suffrages  of 
November  were  deposited  in  the  ballot-box, 
the  secession  of  the  States  —  teterrima  causa 
belli — was  a  predestined  event. 


LETTER  IX. 

STATE  RIGHTS. 

JANUARY,  1865. 

WHEN  this  insane  quarrel  of  the  South 
with  the  North  first  came  to  blows,  the  ques 
tion  between  them,  as  exhibited  in  the  debates 
of  Congress,  in  the  wrangling  of  the  Peace 
Conference,  and  in  the  negotiations  of  the  two 
parties,  was  reduced  to  this  single  demand  on 
the  part  of  the  South :  "  We  insist  upon  the 
right  to  plant  slavery,  at  our  pleasure,  in  all 
the  free  territory  of  the  nation."  An  almost 
boundless  empire  of  this  free  soil  lay  open  to 
settlement  between  the  Ohio  and  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  South  said,  "  It  is  our  right  to 
set  slavery  in  every  acre  of  it,  and  we  must 
have  that  right  acknowledged  or  we  shall  rend 
the  nation  into  fragments."  The  North  re 
plied,  "  Keep  what  you  have  within  your  own 
confines,  but  never  will  we  consent  to  blast 
that  great  free  empire  of  the  future  with  the 
curse  of  slavery."  And  thereupon  the  South 


184  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

drew  the  sword  to  assert  and  maintain  that 
very  act  of  offence  and  insult  to  the  sense  and 
humanity  of  the  age  for  which,  nearly  ninety 
years  before,  Virginia  arraigned  the  monarch 
of  England  in  twenty  successive  remon 
strances  ;  of  which  all  the  colonies  complained 
as  a  grievous  wrong,  and  which  Mr.  Jefferson 
introduced  into  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence  as  one  of  the  chief  topics  to  justify  the 
Revolution. 

To  this  point  was  the  whole  controversy 
ostensibly  reduced  when  the  South  withdrew 
in  dudgeon  from  further  parley.  Every  other 
point  was  accommodated.  Congressional  in 
terference  with  slavery  in  the  States  —  already 
prohibited,  as  all  parties  agreed,  by  the  Con 
stitution  —  was  proffered  to  be  secured  against 
all  future  hazard  by  an  irrepealable  constitu 
tional  amendment.  The  Missouri  Compromise 
line  was  substantially  restored  in  the  arrange 
ment  of  New  Mexico,  which  opened  every  foot 
of  territory  south  of  that  line  to  slave  settle 
ment.  But  all  this  would  not  do  ;  the  un 
limited  privilege  was  insisted  on.  Upon  this 
a  large  majority  of  the  nation  took  their  stand ; 
and  the  South  withdrew  and  put  itself  in  battle 
array  to  fight  for  the  extension  of  slavery  into 
free  territory. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  185 

jFour  years  of  war  have  made  great  changes 
in  the  aims  of  the  first  belligerent.     The  South 

c5 

no  longer  fights  for  the  extension  of  slavery. 
"  We  are  fighting  for  our  territory,"  says  Mr. 
Jefferson  Davis  in  one  of  his  late  messages  to 
his  Congress  ;  as  if  he  wished  to  impress  the 
outside  world,  as  well  as  his  comrades,  with  a 
pathetic  sense  of  the  sacred  character  of  his 
cause.  He  would  have  the  world  believe  that 
this  ruthless  and  despotic  Government  of  the 
United  States  has  wantonly  forced  this  war 
upon  the  South  to  despoil  its  people  of  their 
country,  their  homes,  and  their  firesides ;  and, 
indeed,  it  would  seem  that  he  had  given  this 
idea  some  currency  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  when  English  statesmen  declared  our 
resistance  to  the  rebellion  to  be  only  a  contest 
for  empire. 

It  was  a  shrewd  device  on  the  part  of  the 
South  to  persuade  its  own  people  that  this  war 
was  got  up  to  defend  their  right  to  their  own 
soil.  Nothing,  perhaps,  but  the  end  to  which 
this  war  is  hastening  will  dispel  that  delusion. 
Victory  for  the  Union  will  find  every  foot  of 
territory  just  where  it  was  before  the  strife  be 
gan.  Some  owners  may  have  fled  from  their 
possessions, — that  will  be  as  they  have  chosen; 


186  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

many  will  have  perished,  and  all  who  survive 
may  find  much  difference  in  the  value  of  what 
is  left ;  but  the  law  of  the  soil  will  be  the 
same,  the  home  and  country  the  same,  and 
our  renovated  nation  will  move  onward  in  its 
grand  career,  the  same  beneficent  protective 
power  which  it  was  before  wicked  ambition  es 
sayed  to  strike  it  out  of  existence.  Still,  it  is 
true,  the  great  mass  of  those  who  have  enlisted 
under  the  banner  of  this  revolt  do  really  be 
lieve  that  from  the  first  they  have  been  fight 
ing  for  their  own  homes.  Even  so  considerate 
a  man  as  General  Lee,  the  commander-in-chief 
of  the  rebel  forces,  has  said  that  he  only  took 
up  arms  to  defend  his  own  State  of  Virginia 
against  unlawful  invasion.  Now,  let  any  man 
tell  us  what  rights  of  home  or  country  were 
ever  endangered  in  any  State  of  this  Union  by 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  until  the 
revolting  States  themselves  put  them  in  jeop 
ardy  ?  You  say  you  are  fighting  for  your  ter 
ritory.  If  you  are,  is  it  not  because  your  rash 
resort  to  unprovoked  war  has  compelled  us  —  the 
people  of  the  United  States  —  to  fight  for  ours! 
Were  we  not,  most  reluctantly,  compelled  to 
fight  for  a  whole  section  of  our  country  which 
you  were  striving  to  wrench  from  us  ?  —  for  our 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  187 

territory  of  Florida  and  our  territory  of  Louis 
iana,  both  of  which  we  bought  with  ready  money, 
paid  in  good  red  gold  ?  Are  we  not  fighting  for 
our  navy-yard  at  Pensacola,  built  by  the  nation, 
not  for  the  convenience  of  the  State  of  Flor 
ida  only,  but  for  the  refuge  and  repair  of  our 
shipping,  which,  from  all  quarters,  plies  in  the 
Gulf  ?  Are  we  not  fighting  for  our  forts,  all 
the  way  from  Sumter  to  the  Rio  Grande,  which 
we  had  constructed  at  great  cost,  to  protect  our 
commerce  from  injury  and  insult  ?  Are  we  not 
fighting  for  our  Mississippi  River,  that  we  may 
hold  it  freely  forever  for  the  benefit  of  the  na 
tion,  without  toll  or  tribute,  or  homage  to  any 
power  upon  earth  ?  Are  we  not,  in  fact,  fight 
ing  for  our  rights  in  our  State  of  Virginia,  our 
State  of  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  the  rest 
that  have  assumed,  by  proclamation  and  war,  to 
oust  us  from  privileges  which  belong  as  much 
to  each  of  us  as  to  those  who  seek  to  exclude 
us? 

Who  can  tell  me  why  Louisiana  is  not  as 
much  my  State  as  it  is  the  State  of  John  Slidell 
or  of  Pierre  Soule*,  —  the  two  Senators  who 
represented  it  in  the  Congress  of  the  Union  ? 
Mr.  Slidell,  a  native  of  New  York,  and  who 
lived  there  up  to  a  mature  manhood,  chose  to 


188  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

cast  his  fortunes  in  the  city  of  New  Orleans. 
He  went  with  the  same  certainty  of  an  assured 
welcome  that  he  would  have  had  if  he  had 
elected  to  make  his  new  home  in  Albany. 
He  was  a  citizen  of  the  Union,  and,  as  such, 
was  entitled  to  claim  all  the  privileges  of  a 
domicil  in  any  State  within  its  circle.  His 
citizenship  in  Louisiana  was  as  full  and  as  per 
fect  as  that  in  New  York. 

Mr.  Soul^'s  case  had  less  original  strength 
than  his  colleague's.  He  was  a  Frenchman, 
and  had  no  foothold,  like  that  of  Mr.  Slidell, 
until  he  gained  the  privilege  of  the  national 
citizenship.  This,  therefore,  was  his  first  step, 
without  which  he  could  make  no  career  for 
himself  in  any  State.  With  it,  all  were  open 
to  him.  He  also  chose  Louisiana  as  the  the 
atre  of  his  fortune,  obtained  his  naturalization, 
and  from  that  day  found  himself  in  a  position 
to  contend  for  all  the  honors  an  American 
citizen  might  win  in  any  State  of  the  Union. 
Here  are  two  men  holding  high  authority  in 
the  Government,  exercising  great  influence 
over  the  affairs  of  the  nation,  and  sent  into 
the  Senate  by  the  choice  of  a  State  to  which 
for  a  considerable  portion  of  their  lives  they 
were  absolute  strangers,  and  into  whose  con- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  189 

fines  they  had,  perhaps,  never  journeyed  until 
years  after  they  had  come  to  man's  estate. 

Is  it  not  somewhat  startling  to  hear,  after 
reflecting  upon  such  an  experience  as  this,  men 
of  calm  and  honest  judgment,  and  of  educated 
intelligence,  maintaining  as  a  sound,  or  even  a 
plausible  theory  of  this  common-sense,  practical 
Government  of  ours,  that  a  State  of  the  Union 
may  lawfully  —  I  mean  without  rebellion  and 
revolution  — •  deny  to  me  or  any  other  citizen 
of  the  United  States,  residing  outside  of  its  bor 
ders,  the  same  right  of  domicile  and  domestica 
tion,  and  right  to  pursue  a  path  of  fortune  or 
ambition  which  has  been  so  freely  and  prosper 
ously  opened  to  the  Senators  from  Louisiana  ? 
Is  it  not  still  more  strange  that  those  gentle 
men  themselves  should  be  found  in  the  ranks 
of  those  who  assert  this  right  of  exclusion  ? 
The  case  of  Messrs.  Slidell  and  Soule*  I  cite 
only  as  a  conspicuous  example.  Full  three 
fourths  of  the  whole  South,  bating  the  emi 
nence  of  the  position,  stand  in  the  same  cate 
gory,  —  that  of  migrated  citizens  who  change 
their  domicile  from  one  State  to  another  mainly 
because  they  are  equally  citizens  of  both.  This  " 
capacity  to  range  over  the  Union,  protected  bv 
a  shield  of  universal  citizenship,  is  the  most 


190  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

vital  principle  of  our  progress  ;  it  is  scarcely 
an  exaggeration  to  say  *t  is  one  of  the  most 
precious  of  our  rights.  It  strikes  me  as  one 
of  the  chief  obstacles  which  must  ever  be  pre 
sented  to  the  reflection  of  those  rash  men  who 
meditate  a  severance  of  the  Union,  that  the 
great  majority  of  the  people,  as  distinguished 
from  the  leaders,  will  never  willingly  surrender 
this  unstinted  citizenship ;  and  that,  whenever 
such  a  surrender  is  forced  upon  them  by  the 
passion  or  the  artifice  of  a  revolution,  the  re 
sult  will  be  but  temporary,  and  the  desire  to 
regain  what  is  lost  a  motive  to  ceaseless  agi 
tation.  The  present  rebellion  is  daily  verify- 
ing  this  remark.  Every  man  on  the  Northern 
side  of  the  line  feels  that  the  pretension  of  seces 
sion  is  an  invasion  of  his  personal  right,  whilst 
multitudes  on  the  Southern  side  cannot  com 
prehend  what  they  are  to  gain  by  limiting  the 
area  of  their  privilege  as  American  citizens. 
That  doubt  is  now  gradually  breaking  upon 
their  minds  for  solution. 

The  plea  for  this  limitation  or  circumscrip 
tion  of  citizenship  is  attempted  to  be  explained 
in  a  theory  of  State  Rights,  to  the  examination 
of  which  I  propose  to  devote  the  rest  of  this 
letter. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  191 

This  subject  of  State  Rights  has  been  greatly 
mystified,  in  the  popular  conception  of  it,  by 
the  uses  to  which  it  has  been  put.  Tne  rights 
of  the  States,  as  practically  demonstrated  in 
the  ordinary  operations  of  State  government, 
scarcely  excite  debate.  Nobody  denies  them- 
Every  one  sees  in  them  a  healthful  and  benefi 
cent  power  which  completely  satisfies  the  peo 
ple.  No  one  has  ever  thought  of  disputing  the 

right  of  the  States  to  make  and  alter  their  CCn- 
to 

stitutions  in  their  own  way  and  at  their  own 
pleasure.  We  are  accustomed  to  see  them 
exercise  every  function  of  government  with 
in  their  sphere,  without  the  imagination  of  a 
possible  objection.  They  make  laws,  establish 
judiciaries,  define  crimes  and  punishments,  erect 
corporations,  levy  taxes,  construct  public  works, 
regulate  education,  —  in  short,  enact  and  do 
everything  appertaining  to  their  internal  gov 
ernment  and  domestic  welfare,  without  a  com 
ment  from  any  quarter  to  suggest  a  doubt  of 
their  power.  The  only  condition  required  of 
them  in  this  wide  sphere  of  action  is,  that  they 
shall  do  nothing  which  is  forbidden  by  the 
National  Constitution. 

These  are  the  undoubted  rights  of  the  States, 
and  might  be  exercised  to  the  end  of  time  with- 


192  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

out  being  questioned.  The  experience  of  almost 
a  century  has  afforded  the  most  abundant  proof 
that,  in  the  orderly  administration  of  these 
powers,  they  have  been  found  ample  to  pro 
tect  the  peace  and  happiness  of  the  people,  and 
to  promote  their  prosperity. 

This  formula  of  State  rights  is  intelligible  to 
the  plainest  understanding.  There  is  no  com 
plexity  in  it,  no  knotty  question  to  puzzle  the 
politicians ;  and  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
of  the  whole  nation  would  be,  if  let  alone,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  are,  perfectly  satisfied  with  it, 
as  expressing  the  limit  of  State  powers. 

Still  there  is,  in  the  common  acceptation, 
something  in  the  very  term,  State  rights, 
which  obscures  this  plain,  practical  demonstra 
tion  of  them,  by  connecting  them  with  a  vague 
imagination  of  some  attribute  too  subtle  for  or 
dinary  minds,  —  some  abstract,  reserved  power, 
which  may  be  applied,  in  great  emergencies, 
even  to  the  dissolution  of  the  Government.  It 
is  looked  upon  as  a  piece  of  artillery  which  may 
be  brought  out,  on  occasion,  from  a  secret  arse 
nal,  to  threaten  the  nation  and  put  it  upon  its 
good  behavior.  This  notion  of  State  rights 
comes  up  from  a  political  school  which,  for 
nearly  half  a  century,  has  been  indoctrinating 


MR:  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  193 

the  youth  of  the  country,  and  especially  the 
Southern  youth,  in  its  pernicious  philosophy, 
breeding  premeditated  hostility  to  the  Union. 
It  has  at  last  produced  its  proper  fruit,  in  iden 
tifying  itself  and  its  disciples  with  this  great, 
bloody,  futile  rebellion,  —  in  the  doom  of  which 
it  will  find,  also,  its  proper  punishment. 

The  distinctive  doctrine  which  characterizes 
the  school  asserts  an  original,  inherent,  inalien 
able  sovereignty  in  each  State  of  the  Union. 
It  affirms  the  States  to  be  sovereign  powers, 
possessing  an  absolute  right  to  determine  for 
themselves  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to 
the  whole.  It  maintains  that,  as  an  expedient 
of  convenience,  these  States  have  created  a 
common  agency  to  transact  their  common  busi 
ness  in  reference  to  matters  of  general  or  for 
eign  concern,  to  which  agency  they  have 
agreed,  by  a  compact  with  each  other,  to  com 
mit  certain  described  powers,  with  a  tacit  res 
ervation  of  their  right  to  determine,  each  State 
for  itself,  whether  the  agency  lawfully  performs, 
in  any  arising  case,  the  duty  assigned  to  it,  and, 
upon  an  adverse  determination  of  the  question, 
to  decline  submission,  to  nullify  the  proceeding, 
and  even,  in  the  last  resort,  to  retire  from  the 
association.  This  agency  is  described  as  the 
13 


194  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

Federal  Government,  which  is  supposed  to  ex 
ist  upon  no  stronger  or  more  durable  tenure 
than  may  be  deduced  from  this  theory  of  State 
Rights. 

This  conception  of  the  character  of  the  Union 
and  of  the  powers  of  the  Government  has  been 
of  slow  and  reluctant  growth.  It  was  discussed 
at  the  formation  of  the  Constitution,  and  re 
jected.  It  had  a  party  then,  and  has  had, 
under  various  conditions,  a  party  ever  since ; 
but  it  never  has  had  the  consent  of  the  people, 
nor  a  majority  of  the  leading  minds  of  the 
country  in  its  favor.  The  most  distinguished 
of  its  advocates  have  been  quite  as  distinguished 
amongst  its  opponents ;  and  it  has  been  used 
and  disused,  approved  and  rejected  by  the  same 
persons  and  parties  at  different  dates,  to  suit  the 
political  emergencies  of  the  day.  It  claims  to 
have  had  its  most  authentic  enunciation  in  the 
Resolutions  of  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  in  1798 
and  1799,  notwithstanding  its  positive  repudi 
ation  by  the  author  of  the  first  of  these  reso 
lutions,  Mr.  Madison,  and  its  incongruity  with 
the  written  opinions  of  the  author  of  the  sec 
ond,  Mr.  Jefferson.  It  boasts  of  its  support  in 
the  names  of  Calhoun,  McDuffie,  and  Hamil 
ton,  as  the  doctrine  of  South  Carolina,  in  1832, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  195 

notwithstanding  the  deliberate,  studied,  and  co 
gent  refutation  of  it  written  by  one  of  these 
statesmen,  and  published  with  the  hearty  con 
currence  of  the  other  two,  in  1821.  It  has 
never,  indeed,  been  a  widely  accepted  doctrine, 
even  in  the  South,  until  this  rebellion  found  it 
to  be  the  most  convenient  and  effective  lenitive 
to  the  conscience  of  that  multitude  of  men  and 
women  who  were  in  search  of  a  pretext  for  the 
indulgence  of  the  pride  and  passion  that  revelled 
in  the  fancy  of  a  Southern  dominion.  Then, 
all  at  once,  it  became  the  creed  of  the  party ; 
an  article  of  faith  to  the  insurgents  ;  an  article 
of  fashion  and  badge  of  gentility  to  their  sym 
pathizing  friends  outside  of  the  line  of  fire. 

In  reflecting  upon  these  two  aspects  of  the 
theory  of  State  Rights  —  that  plain  exposition 
of  them  seen  in  the  daily  administration  of  the 
State  governments,  and,  in  contrast  with  it, 
this  ultra  dogma  of  sovereignty  —  it  is  worthy 
of  remark  that  every  State  has  thriven  whilst 
it  confined  its  ambition  to  the  scope  indicated 
by  the  first ;  and  that  what  discord,  feud,  and 
damage  have  marred  the  prosperity  of  any  sec 
tion  of  the  Union,  or  disfigured  the  annals  of 
any  State,  have  been  coincident  with  politi 
cal  aspirations  towards  a  power  to  subordi- 


196  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

nate  the  National  Government  to  a  State  su 
premacy. 

The  question  to  which  this  review  of  the 
State  Rights  theory  brings  us  is  one  of  great 
interest :  Are  the  States  sovereigns,  in  the 
sense  which  claims  for  them  a  reserved  inhe 
rent  power  to  assert,  in  any  event,  a  suprem 
acy  over  the  National  Government  ?  —  in  fact, 
are  they  sovereigns  at  all  ? 

According  to  that  scientific  definition  of  sov 
ereignty  which  we  generally  find  in  treatises 
upon  national  law,  those  States  are  not,  and 
never  have  been,  sovereigns.  I  mean  by  this  to 
affirm,  that,  adopting  the  notion  of  sovereignty 
as  expounded  in  the  books,  —  especially  in  the 
writings  of  European  jurists,  —  there  is  no  such 
attribute  of  sovereignty  in  any  State  of  this 
Union  as  belongs  to  an  independent  nation. 
Whatever  quantum  of  sovereign  power  exists 
in  the  individual  States  is  derivative  and  second 
ary ',  not  original  or  inherent;  it  comes  from 
grant  or  permission  of  a  higher  power,  and  is 
subject  to  all  the  conditions  that  higher  power 
may  have  imposed  upon  it,  or  may  in  future 
impose  upon  it. 

The  present  thirty-six  States  have  grown  up 
out  of  thirteen  British  Colonies  and  the  terri- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  197 

tory  purchased,  or  otherwise  obtained,  by  the 
Union  since  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution. 
It  is  to  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  therefore,  that 
we  must  look  for  any  germ  of  sovereignty  that 
may  be  supposed  to  reside  in  the  States. 

Confessedly  the  colonies  were  not  sovereign 
powers.  They  were  corporations,  existing  by 
grants  from  the  Crown.  They  were  invested 
by  their  charters  with  a  broad  privilege  of  self- 
government,  reaching  pretty  nearly  to  all  the 
functions  of  domestic  or  municipal  polity  now 
exercised  by  the  States.  But  still  they  were 
subjects  of  the  Crown,  bound,  in  many  respects, 
by  the  laws  of  Parliament,  and  liable  to  the 
forfeiture  of  their  charters  for  misconduct.  Of 
course,  such  organizations  could  not  be  said  to 
possess  the  character  of  sovereigns,  in  the  sense 
in  which  that  character  is  now  claimed  for  the 
States. 

By  what  action  or  means,  it  may  then  be 
asked,  could  these  colonies  be  converted  into 
sovereign  States  ?  I  answer,  amongst  other 
means,  —  such  as  the  grant  of  the  parent  State, 
or  its  abandonment  of  the  colony,  —  such  com 
munities  may  become  sovereign  authorities  by 
conquest.  A  people  may  turn  upon  the  power 
that  rules  them,  engage  in  a  war  of  revolution, 


198  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

and,  if  successful,  they  may  acquire  territory 
and  independence  by  right  of  conquest,  and 
lawfully  become  absolutely  sovereign. 

This  leads  us  to  inquire,  Were  the  colonies 
converted  into  sovereign  States  by  this  right  of 
conquest  ?  Let  us  take  a  brief  glance  at  the 
history  of  their  transformation.  The  breach 
between  the  mother  country  and  the  colonies 
grew  out  of  certain  acts  of  Parliament  and 
Executive  interferences,  which  were  regarded 
as  infringements  of  the  rights  of  the  people  of 
these  communities  as  English  subjects.  These 
grievances  were  supposed  to  assail  the  political 
rights  of  the  people  of  all  the  colonies.  There 
was,  therefore,  a  common  cause  of  complaint. 
After  much  remonstrance  from  the  people, 
speaking  through  their  legislatures,  and  through 
city,  county,  and  other  popular  assemblages, 
it  became  apparent  that  the  discontent  was 
leading  to  the  outbreak  of  a  rebellion,  and  to 
the  probable  establishment  of  an  independent 
government.  This  state  of  things  naturally 
brought  to  the  consideration  of  the  people  an 
inquiry  into  their  capability  to  sustain  a  con 
test  with  the  mother  country.  The  purpose  of 
such  a  contest  would  be  to  conquer  a  right  to 
possess  the  country  and  govern  it ;  their  only 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  199 

means  to  do  this  lay  in  the  combined  strength 
of  the  people  of  the  colonies,  marshalled  in  ar 
mies.  The  important  question,  therefore,  was, 
How  were  these  armies  to  be  obtained  and 
supported  ?  The  answer  came  in  a  universal 
demand,  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the 
other,  for  Union.  Before  anything  was  at 
tempted,  Union  was  indispensable.  "  Let  the 
people  unite  and  make  common  cause,"  was 
the  cry  from  New  Hampshire  to  Georgia. 
"  Let  us  stand  by  each  other,  and,  if  justice 
be  not  done  to  our  demands,  let  us  apply  our 
united  force  to  the  extinguishment  of  the  Brit 
ish  sovereignty  here,  and  the  establishment  in 
its  place  of  a  sovereignty  of  our  own  !  "  This 
was  the  resolve  that  rang  like  a  trumpet-note 
through  the  country. 

The  great  mass  of  the  people  of  the  several 
colonies  had  arrived  at  this  determination  in 
1776.  They  had  been  discussing  questions  of 
adjustment  and  redress  in  Congress  for  two 
years  before  this,  in  the  hope  of  peaceful  settle 
ment  with  the  Crown  ;  but  their  propositions 
were  rejected,  and  the  Congress  of  that  year 
took  the  final  and  decisive  step,  called  for  by 
the  people,  of  declaring  the  independence  of 
the  colonies,  and  making  a  direct  appeal  to 
arms  to  secure  it. 


200  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

This  declaration  was  made  "by  the  repre 
sentatives,"  as  they  describe  themselves,  "  of 
the  United  States  of  America  in  General  Con 
gress  assembled,"  and  announces  the  act  to  be 
done  "  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
good  people  of  these  colonies." 

In  this  paper  they  take  occasion  to  announce 
the  principles  of  human  right  by  which  they 
held  themselves  justified  in  the  great  enterprise 
they  were  about  to  undertake.  These  princi 
ples  found  but  little  support  in  the  political 
philosophy  of  that  age ;  they  were,  however, 
distinctively  American,  and  have,  from  the 
date  of  this  declaration,  ever  been  regarded  as 
the  true  basis  of  our  Government.  Amongst 
other  things,  they  announce  that  governments 
are  instituted  to  secure  the  rights  of  the  people, 
and  derive  their  just  powers  only  "from  the  con 
sent  of  the  governed ; "  and  they  declare,  more 
over,  "that  whenever  any  form  of  government 
becomes  destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right 
of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it,  and  to  in 
stitute  a  new  government"  on  such  principles 
as  "shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety 
and  happiness."  This  summary  of  rights  is  fol 
lowed  by  a  statement  of  the  many  acts  of  usur 
pation  and  tyranny,  on  the  part  of  the  Crown, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  201 

that  were  deemed  sufficient  to  warrant  the 
attempt  at  revolution  to  which  this  declara 
tion  was  the  prelude ;  and  the  document  ends 
with  the  momentous  proclamation,  "  That  these 
United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be, 
Free  and  Independent  States." 

This  is  all  so  familiar  to  an  American  reader 
as  almost  to  require  an  apology  for  its  repeti 
tion.  But  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  recall 
these  passages  in  order  to  ask  attention  to  three 
points  presented  hy  them,  which  I  think  wor 
thy  of  notice :  — 

1.  That  they  affirm  the  consent  of  the  people 
to  be  the  only  legitimate  foundation  of  govern 
ment,  and  the  only  authority  competent  to  alter 
the  form  of  government ;  an  affirmation  which 
imports  simply  that  the  sovereignty  of  a  nation 
resides  only  in  the  people. 

2.  That  this  Declaration  was  issued  to  the 
world,  by  the  representatives  in  that  Congress, 
as  the  act,  and  in  the  name,  of  "  the  good  people 
of  these  colonies  ;  "  and, 

3.  That  in  proclaiming  the  colonies  thence 
forth  to  be  "free  and  independent  States,"  it 
does  not  assume  to  describe  them  as  sovereign 
States.     They  were  pronounced  free  and  inde 
pendent  of  any  allegiance  or  subjection  to  the 


202  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

British  Crown ;  but  whether  they  were  to  be 
independent  sovereignties  or  integral  parts  of  a 
future  nation  rested  entirely,  according  to  the 
principles  formally  laid  down  in  this  same  pa 
per,  upon  the  determination  of  "  the  good  peo 
ple  of  these  colonies,"  —  in  other  words,  "upon 
the  consent  of  the  governed,"  when  the  time 
should  come  to  make  a  government. 

Now,  this  was  the  starting-point  of  the  new 
order  of  things.  The  war  was  just  begun. 
What  government  the  United  Colonies  then 
had  may  be  described  as  of  the  simplest  form 
of  revolutionary,  Provisional  Government,  sud 
denly  got  up  for  the  emergency,  and  to  be 
moulded  into  something  better  hereafter.  The 
Colonial  Assemblies  or  Conventions  sent  dele 
gates  to  a  general  Congress  to  consult  and  to 
do  what  they  thought  best.  This  Congress  was 
composed  of  but  one  House.  The  administra 
tion  was  carried  on  by  committees.  There  was 
neither  time  nor  temper  to  construct  a  govern 
ment.  The  movement  of  the  Revolution  de 
pended  solely  on  the  patriotism  of  the  people 
and  the  spontaneous  or  volunteer  obedience  of 
the  several  colonies  to  the  requests  of  Con 
gress. 

The  people  flew  to  arms  from  every  town, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  203 

village,  and  hamlet,  and  repaired  to  their  sev 
eral  camps  wherever  they  were  summoned. 
Virginians,  Marylanders,  and  Pennsylvanians 
marched  to  Massachusetts ;  and  in  turn,  Mas 
sachusetts,  Vermont,  and  New  Hampshire  sent 
their  men  to  Virginia  and  Carolina.  In  action 
the  whole  country  was  one  nation,  struggling 
for  one  object,  —  the  expulsion  of  the  British 
power  from  the  circle  of  the  "  Old  Thirteen," 
and  the  establishment  in  place  of  it  of  the 
power  of  "the  good  people  of  these  colonies." 

The  contest  lasted  seven  years.  In  the  end, 
Britain  was  beaten,  her  dominion  extinguished, 
her  sovereignty  wrested  from  her  and  transfer 
red  to  another  hand.  To  whom  was  that  sov 
ereignty  transferred  ?  To  those  who  conquered 
it.  Who  were  they  ?  Was  it  Virginia  ?  Was 
it  Massachusetts,  New  York,  Pennsylvania  ? 
No ;  not  any  one  of  these,  but  all  together. 
The  sovereignty,  then,  went  to  all  together, 
—  "  to  the  good  people  of  these  colonies  "  who 
originated  the  war,  carried  it  through,  and 
made  themselves  a  nation,  with  free  choice  of 
their  own  future  organization. 

No  one  of  the  colonies,  during  all  this  strug 
gle,  singly  declared  itself  independent.  No  one 
had  the  power  to  maintain  such  a  declaration, 


204  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

if  it  had  been  made.  No  one,  consequently, 
possessed  any  capability  to  make  itself  sover 
eign.  If,  therefore,  after  the  declaration  of  in 
dependence,  any  State  or  States  became  vested 
with  any  kind  of  sovereignty,  it  must  have 
been  by  the  grant,  permission,  or  acquiescence 
(which  is  implied  consent)  of  "  the  good  peo 
ple  of  these  colonies";  and  this,  of  course,  re 
pels  the  idea  of  original  and  inherent  State 
sovereignty. 

Now,  it  did  occur,  pending  the  war  and 
after  the  Declaration,  that  the  States  did  as 
sume  to  be  sovereign.  This  is  a  curious  pas 
sage  in  our  history,  which  is  marked  by  some 
striking  demonstrations  of  a  mistake  made  by 
our  ancestors,  in  their  first  conception  of  the 
character  as  well  as  of  the  necessities  of  the 
Union  they  were  about  to  establish. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  were  adopted 
in  1777,  but  not  entirely  ratified  until  1781. 
They  were  the  first  expression  of  the  idea  of 
government  for  the  Union.  They  were  begun 
in  an  effort  at  government  a  year  before  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  at  a  time 
when,  as  Washington  remarked,  "No  sensible 
man  on  the  continent  desired  independence ; " 
when  all  hoped  for  satisfactory  adjustment  of 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  205 

differences  with  the  Crown.  The  first  out 
lines,  therefore,  made  no  reference  to  sovereign 
States. 

Yet  it  cannot  be  doubted  —  for  the  evidence 
is  clear  —  that  the  Congress  of  '77  and  its  suc 
cessors  had  a  large  majority  whose  conception 
of  the  new  government  did  not  go  beyond  the 
imagination  of  a  League  of  Sovereign  States. 
The  Congress  that  framed  and  adopted  the  ar 
ticles  explicitly  declared  the  doctrine  of  State 
sovereignty  in  the  second  article,  in  the  follow 
ing  terms :  "  Each  State  retains  its  sovereignty, 
freedom,  and  independence,  and  every  power, 
jurisdiction,  and  right  which  is  not,  by  this  Con 
federation,  expressly  delegated  to  the  United 
States  in  Congress  assembled." 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  that,  at  the  date  of  this 
act,  the  States  had  not  come  into  possession 
of  sovereignty,  freedom,  or  independence ;  they 
were  all  engaged  in  the  war  to  conquer  these 
privileges,  —  a  war  which  had  only  begun. 
How  could  any  of  these  States  retain  what 
none  of  them  had  yet  obtained  ?  Much  more, 
how  could  each  of  them  retain  a  sovereignty 
which  not  one  of  them  had  even  pretended 
before  this  to  assert  for  itself,  and  which  the 
people  —  the  proclaimed  source  of  all  sover- 


206  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

eignty  —  had  not  yet  even  been  asked  to  con 
fer  upon  them  ;  which,  indeed,  they  had  not 
yet  the  power  to  confer  upon  them  ? 

It  was  a  strange  solecism  in  the  political 
action  of  that  old  Congress,  this  undertaking 
to  distribute  sovereignty  amongst  the  States, 
when  they  had  not  yet  secured  it  for  them 
selves  !  But  the  act  was  liable  to  a  still  greater 
objection  ;  for,  supposing  that  the  States  had 
conquered  their  independence,  where  did  the 
delegates  of  that  Congress,  or  any  subsequent 
one,  get  authority  to  declare  a  State  a  sover 
eign  power  ?  They  had  just  proclaimed  it  to 
be  a  fundamental  principle  —  that  all  lawful 
government  rested  solely  on  the  consent  of  the 
people.  Had  they  the  consent  of  the  people  to 
this  act  ?  Did  they,  indeed,  ask  the  consent  of 
the  people  of  any  one  State  to  authorize  them  to 
form  the  government  they  were  then  devising  ? 
No,  not  one.  They  were  not  themselves  even 
elected  by  the  people.  They  held  their  seats 
by  the  selection  of  their  legislatures,  not  by 
popular  vote.  Did  they,  when  their  work  was 
done,  refer  it  to  the  people  for  ratification  ? 
No  ;  the  utmost  that  they  did  was  to  refer 
the  ratification  to  the  States ;  and,  in  fact,  the 
people  never  did  act  upon  that  scheme  of  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  207 

Confederation  at  all.  Clearly,  the  whole  pro 
ceeding  must  be  regarded,  when  tested  by  the 
principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
as  a  usurpation  on  the  part  of  the  States.  Still, 
it  is  true,  the  people  acquiesced.  The  great 
business  of  the  time  did  not  admit  of  nice  de 
bates  on  points  of  power,  and  the  people  had 
too  much  respect  for  the  patriots  who  guided 
the  public  counsels  to  question  what  they  did 
in  their  endeavors  to  establish  the  nation.  And 
so,  we  may  admit  that  the  Government  of  the 
Confederation,  during  its  short  existence,  did 
really  recognize  —  with  the  acquiescence,  if  not 
the  consent  of  the  people  —  the  theory  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  States.  The  history  of  that 
old  Confederation,  its  hasty  birth,  its  halting 
and  feeble  existence,  and  its  early  death,  afford 
irresistible  evidence  of  the  utter  incompetency 
of  that  State-rights  theory  to  answer  the  most 
ordinary  needs  of  the  nation. 

The  Confederation  was  finally  ratified  by  the 
States  in  1781.  It  had  been  four  years  under 
debate.  One  of  the  prominent  objections  made 
to  it,  and  which  longest  delayed  its  acceptance, 
shows  how  naturally  the  sense  of  the  country, 
when  called  into  action  free  from  the  influence 
of  a  political  theory,  turned  towards  a  true 


208  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

perception  of  the  rights  that  grew  out  of  the 
contest  of  the  Revolution.  The  difficulty  that 
stood  in  the  way  of  the  Confederation  was  a 
question  of  territory.  Several  of  the  States 
claimed,  under  their  colonial  charter,  a  width 
and  breadth  of  boundary  which  gave  them  the 
area  of  an  empire  of  yet  unsettled  land.  Vir 
ginia,  especially,  held  large  tracts  beyond  the 
Ohio.  The  smaller  States  objected  to  a  con 
federation  which  acknowledged  State  sover 
eignty  over  this  vast,  uncultivated  domain. 
They  objected  that  this  domain  did  not  right 
fully  belong  to  the  States  that  claimed  it  by 
their  charters,  but  belonged  to  all  the  colonies, 
as  a  national  possession  conquered  from  the 
British  Crown  by  the  united  arms  and  common 
resources  of  the  whole.  They  contended,  in 
effect,  that  no  one  State  had  gained  anything 
by  conquest,  and  that  what  was  gained  was 
gained  by  all  for  the  benefit  of  all.  It  was 
only  by  a  promise  of  judicious  compromise 
with  this  objection,  looking  to  a  future  surren 
der  of  their  claims,  that  even  the  States  agreed 
to  adopt  the  Confederation. 

And  now  came  the  trial  of  the  State-rights 
theory.  The  Confederation  formed  upon  it, 
even  before  it  went  into  full  operation  in  1781, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  209 

had  been  pronounced  a  failure.  After  the 
peace,  in  1783,  the  failure  became  every  day 
more  manifest.  The  letters  of  the  statesmen 
of  that  time  are  full  of  complaints  of  the  utter 
inefficiency  of  the  system  —  the  League  of  Sov 
ereign  States  —  to  answer  the  most  indispensa 
ble  demands  of  government.  Congress  was 
continually  suggesting  expedients  of  amend 
ment  ;  the  States  were  constantly  endeavoring 
to  reconcile  the  two  evidently  incompatible 
ideas  of  national  welfare  and  State  sover 
eignty  by  propositions  to  patch  up  the  one 
with  grudged  and  stinted  concessions  from 
the  other.  But  all  would  not  do.  The  coun 
try  was  fast  "descending,"  as  Washington  ex 
pressed  it,  "  into  the  vale  of  confusion  and 
darkness."  There  was  really  but  one  remedy 
against  this  state  of  things,  and  that  was  finally 
recognized  by  Congress  in  1787,  by  the  resolu 
tion  to  call  a  Convention  to  meet  in  Philadel 
phia  in  May  of  that  year,  "for  the  sole  and 
express  purpose  of  revising  the  Articles  of 
Confederation,  and  reporting  to  Congress  and 
the  several  Legislatures  such  alterations  and 
provisions  therein  as  shall,  when  agreed  to  in 
Congress  and  confirmed  by  the  States,  render 
the  Federal  Constitution  adequate  to  the  exi- 
14 


210  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

gencies  of  government  and  the  preservation  of 
the  Union." 

How  that  Convention  dealt  with  the  ques 
tion  of  State  sovereignty  I  propose  to  make  the 
subject  of  the  next  Letter. 


JV*/**^ 

Library* 


LETTER  X. 

STATE  SOVEREIGNTY. 

FEBRUARY,  1865. 

CHRONOLOGICALLY,  the  State-rights,  or  State- 
sovereignty  idea,  lasted  in  theory  ten  years, 
from  1777  to  1787.  Practically,  it  was  a  caput 
mortuum  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  its 
term.  During  the  war  the  Government  got 
along  in  spite  of  the  obstructions  of  the  theory, 
—  propelled  by  the  patriotism  of  the  country ; 
after  the  war  it  did  not  get  along  at  all.  The 
public  affairs  were  generally  at  a  dead-lock. 
The  national  finances  were  in  inextricable  con 
fusion  ;  the  public  engagements  were  repudi 
ated  ;  the  current  debts  were  unpaid ;  the  na 
tional  treaties  were  unfulfilled ;  the  commerce 
of  the  country  was  left  without  regulation  ;  the 
States  were  in  a  continual  quarrel  with  each 
other  upon  the  extent  of  their  boundaries  and 
their  separate  right  to  territory,  which  their 
united  arms  had  won  from  its  former  owner ; 


212  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

insurrection  was  threatened  ;  the  Government 
had  no  power  either  to  make  peace  between 
the  disputants,  or  to  protect  itself.  The  States 
were  all  sovereigns,  and  could  conduct  things 
according  to  their  own  humor. 

When  the  Convention  met,  there  was  a 
party  in  that  body  which  rather  seemed  to 
favor  this  state  of  things.  The  small  States 
were  jealous  of  the  large,  and  this  sentiment 
was  reciprocated  from  the  large  States,  by  a 
disparaging  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  small. 
But  the  great  and  wise  leaders  of  the  Conven 
tion  came  to  their  duty  with  a  full  appreciation 
of  the  importance  of  the  labors  before  them. 
'..  They  came  with  an  earnest  determination  to 
break  up  the  rickety  League  of  1777,  and  sub 
stitute  in  its  place  A  NATION.  They  came 
resolved  to  restore  that  principle  of  the  Dec 
laration  of  Independence  which  had,  for  ten 
years,  been  thrown  into  abeyance,  —  the  prac 
tical  acknowledgment  of  the  Sovereignty  of 
the  People.  An  objection  was  made  as  to 
the  extent  of  the  authority  conferred  upon  the 
Convention  to  create  a  new  government.  It 
was  said  that  Congress  had  only  given  them 
power  to  revise  and  amend  the  old  Articles 
of  Confederation.  The  reply  was:  We  shall 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  2i 

propose  our  new  government  to  the  people, 
and,  if  they  ratify  it,  it  will  be  the  act  of  the 
sovereign  power  of  the  nation,  and  so  of  su 
preme  authority.  Upon  this  basis  the  labors 
of  the  Convention  were  conducted  to  the  end. 
The  result  was,  the  present  Constitution  was 
finally  ratified  by  the  people  of  every  State 
assembled  in  convention. 

The  key  to  a  true  interpretation  of  the  char 
acter  and  power  of  the  National  Government, 
and  of  the  relation  of  the  State  governments 
to  it,  will  be  found  in  that  simple  principle,  so 
distinctly  announced  in  the  Declaration,  —  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people  of  the  Union,  or,  in 
the  language  of  the  paper  itself,  "  of  the  good 
people  of  these  colonies." 

As  my  subject  now  leads  me  to  make  some 
remarks  upon  this  question  of  sovereignty,  I 
must  premonish  you  that  I  entirely  repudiate 
and  discard  that  scientific  or  professional  defi 
nition  of  this  term,  to  which  I  made  some  allu 
sion  in  my  last  Letter,  as  accepted  in  trans- 
Atlantic  treatises  on  national  law,  and  which 
definition,  I  think,  has  been  too  broadly  adopted 
into  our  own. 

I  have  never  seen  it  noticed  that  our  dis 
tinctively  American  form  of  government  is 


214  MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

founded  on  a  basis  which  repels  the  European, 
or  Old-World,  idea  of  sovereignty  and  allegi 
ance.  I  am,  therefore,  perhaps,  venturing  on 
an  entirely  new  ground,  when  I  assert  that  the 
relations  between  the  State  and  the  people,  as 
created  by  our  scheme  of  polity,  are  not  to 
be  measured  by  the  rule  which  determines 
the  character  of  sovereignty  and  allegiance,  as 
known  to  the  monarchical  forms  of  society. 
Sovereignty  and  allegiance  are  feudal  ideas. 
They  are  correlatives,  which  suppose  a  chief 
on  one  side  and  a  vassal  on  the  other.  They 
describe  attributes  and  duties  of  persons,  —  the 
sovereign  lord  and  the  liegeman.  One  owes 

o  o 

protection,  the  other  obedience.  The  liege 
man,  according  to  the  old  feudal  custom,  came 
into  court  and  pledged  himself,  by  oath,  "to  be 
faithful  to  the  king  and  his  heirs,  and  truth 
and  faith  to  bear,  of  life  and  limb  and  terrene 
honor ;  and  not  to  know  or  hear  of  any  ill  or 
damage  intended  him,  without  defending  him 
therefrom."  This  was,  in  the  primitive  days 
of  feudalism,  the  pledge  of  allegiance,  when 
made  to  the  sovereign,  —  of  fealty,  when  made 
to  a  superior  or  lord  who  himself  was  a  feuda 
tory  to  the  sovereign. 

This  idea  of  sovereignty  and  allegiance  be- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  215 

came,  in  process  of  time,  expanded  beyond  its 
original  narrow  feudal  limits,  and  found  a  place 
in  our  national  law,  as  the  expression  of  the 
relation  between  the  subject  or  citizen  and  the 
State.  But  it  has  never  lost,  in  monarchical 
countries,  its  personal  attribute  ;  it  is  inva 
riably,  in  such  countries,  exhibited  as  a  per 
sonal  relation.  Sovereignty  is  personated  in 
the  king;  allegiance  is  personated  in  the  per 
formance  of  the  duty  due  from  the  subject  to 
the  king. 

It  is  easy  to  trace  the  transition  of  this  idea 
into  the  field  of  the  general  rights  and  obliga 
tions  which  the  law  of  nations  of  the  present 
age  has  laid  down  for  the  government  of  prince 
and  people,  and,  more  abstractly,  for  defining 
the  relation  between  State  and  citizen.  But  it 
will  be  found  that,  throughout  this  transition, 
the  seminal  idea  is  always  preserved ;  there  is 
always  present  in  it  some  vestige  of  its  original 
reference  to  person.  The  sovereign  is  an  au 
gust  power  visibly  represented  in  the  monarch ; 
his  person  is  sacred,  his  authority  paramount, 
he  can  neither  give  it  away  nor  diminish  it ; 
by  a  fiction  of  law,  he  never  dies ;  the  man 
may  abdicate,  but  the  king  cannot ;  his  right 
comes  from  Heaven  ;  it  is  inherent  and  in- 


216  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

alienable.  The  subject  is  the  servant  or  vassal 
of  this  power,  and  owes  to  the  possessor  of  it 
all  respect,  deference,  and  veneration.  He  is 
guilty,  not  only  of  breach  of  law,  but  of  inde 
corum  and  irreverence,  when  he  disobeys  his 
sovereign.  And  when  he  rises  against  him  in 
rebellion,  or  abets  those  who  do  so,  he  commits 
treason,  which  he  is  educated  to  believe  is  a 
species  of  parricide.  These  are  the  traditional 
ideas  which  come  to  us  from  the  other  side  of 
the  Atlantic,  and  which  have  very  notably  im 
printed  their  character  upon  our  philosophy  in 
defining  the  relation  between  the  State  and  the 
citizen.  We  have,  however,  nothing  in  ouf 
system  of  government,  either  State  or  National, 
which  precisely  answers  to  this  trans- Atlantic 
idea  of  sovereignty  and  allegiance,  notwith 
standing  our  seeming  adoption  of  it  in  our 
national  jurisprudence.  We  have  no  symbol 
ism  by  which  to  represent  either ;  no  material, 
visible  sovereign ;  no  form  for  the  manifesta 
tion  of  personal  allegiance  from  the  subject. 
There  is  nothing  apparent  to  exact  that  rev 
erence  of  sovereignty  or  that  humility  of  alle 
giance  which  are  uppermost  in  the  foreign 
conception  of  government.  Then,  again,  we 
have  nothing  from  which  may  be  inferred  an 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  217 

original  and  inherent  right  to  govern  in  any 
State  or  National  organization.  We  reduce- 
government  to  a  very  simple  principle,  —  the 
will  and  consent  of  the  people.  We  have  lit 
tle  or  no  reverence  for  old  forms  or  old  ideas, 
but  brush  them  away  without  compunction  the 
moment  we  find  them  to  be  an  obstruction.  We 
have  but  little  veneration  for  those  in  authority ; 
they  are  our  servants,  and  we  change  them 
when  we  choose,  —  perhaps  much  too  often. 
We  invest  government  with  no  mystery,  but  ' 
look  upon  it  as  a  machine  of  our  own  making, 
which  we  may  take  apart  and  put  together  as 
often  as  we  may  conceive  it  necessary  for  its 
better  working.  At  bottom,  our  constitutions,  * 
one  and  all,  are,  in  fact,  unwritten.  Reducing 
them  to  their  ultimate  term,  they  may  be  ex 
pressed  in  one  sentence,  —  "The  Government 
'shall  be  what  the  people  may,  from  time  to 
time,  ordain  it."  A  convention  may  come  to 
gether  twice,  thrice,  a  dozen  times  in  a  century, 
in  any  State,  or  in  behalf  of  all  the  States,  and 
adopt  a  set  of  fundamental  ordinances  which 
shall  be  good  until  another  convention  shall 
supersede  them  by  a  new  enactment.  That 
is  now  recognized  law  all  over  the  country. 
These  conventions  even  make  new  Bills  of 


218  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

Rights,  —  in  other  words,  new  declarations  of 
the  inalienable,  inviolable,  and  imprescriptible 
rights  of  American  citizens,  —  to  hold  good  un 
til  another  convocation  shall  discover  a  fresh 
and  better  assortment  of  the  eternal  principles 
of  human  freedom ! 

With  these  differences  of  doctrine  and  prac 
tice  between  us  and  the  Old  World,  it  is  very 
obvious  we  have  no  need,  and,  indeed,  no  pos 
sibility,  of  retaining  the  Old-World  notions  of 
sovereignty  and  allegiance.  We  have  kept 
the  terms,  —  and  that  is  all.  Sovereignty,  in 
our  practical  exposition  of  it,  simply  means  the 
power  to  make  and  execute  the  laws,  and  im 
plies,  of  course,  the  power  to  appoint  agents 
to  perform  this  function.  That  power  resides 
only  in  the  body  of  the  people.  The  people 
appoint  representatives  to  organize  a  govern 
ment  ;  which  government  is  required  and  con 
trived  to  discharge  such  duties  as  the  people 
have  agreed  to  consign  to  it. 

In  accordance  with  this  scheme,  the  people 
of  the  United  States  have  ordained,  by  the 
Constitution,  that  the  National  Government 
shall  exercise,  in  their  name,  certain  sovereign 
powers,  and  shall,  within  the  prescribed  limits, 
also  represent  their  sovereignty.  So  far,  the 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  219 

National  Government  may  be  called  sovereign. 
The  same  people  have  also  ordained  that  the 
States  shall,  in  like  manner,  be  authorized  to 
exercise  certain  sovereign  powers.  There  were 
thirteen  States,  which,  as  colonies  of  the  Brit 
ish  Crown,  had  been  invested  with  a  power  to 
govern  themselves  according  to  their  own  will, 
within  a  defined  sphere  of  action.  The  people, 
speaking  through  the  Constitution  they  had 
made,  said  to  these  thirteen  States  :  "  You 
shall  exercise  all  the  functions  of  sovereignty 
to  which  you  have  been  accustomed,  except 
in  such  matters  as  we  find  it  convenient  to 
prohibit.  And,  as  we  propose  hereafter  to 
create  many  more  States,  we  shall  give  to 
them  the  same  powers  that  are  allowed  to  you, 
subject  them  to  the  same  restrictions,  and  make 
them,  in  all  respects,  your  equals ;  that  is  to 
say,  we  shall  confer  upon  them  precisely  the 
same  amount  of  sovereignty  that  you  possess." 
Now,  whatever  sovereignty  may  be  said  to 
reside  in  the  States  has  this  origin.  It  comes 
ty  grant  from  the  people  of  the  United  States  ; 
it  was  not  preexistent,  independent,  or  original. 
It  is  a  qualified,  conditional  sovereignty,  which,  ' 
in  the  European  sense,  is  no  sovereignty  at  all, 
and  which,  in  our  American  sense,  is  the  only 


220  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

kind  of  sovereignty  that  can  exist  in  any  State 
organism.  The  sovereignty  is  in  the  people, 
and  not  in  the  organized  government :  there,  it 
is  a  representation,  only,  of  sovereignty.  The 
question  then  arises,  Is  there  not  a  separate 
sovereignty  in  the  people  of  each  State  ?  That 
question  I  have  answered  in  the  last  Letter,  — 
"  No ;  for  the  people  of  no  State,"  as  I  have 
said,  "  ever  proclaimed  or  conquered  a  separate 
sovereignty."  The  National  Constitution  ab 
solutely  negatives  the  claim  to  original  or  inde 
pendent  sovereignty  in  any  State  of  the  Union. 
That  Constitution  was  constructed  on  the  as 
sumption,  in  which  the  whole  country  acqui 
esced,  that  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  virtually  represented  in  conven 
tion  and  supported,  in  a  subsequent  vote,  by  a 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  States,  had  full 
authority  to  propose,  ordain,  and  establish  the 
fundamental  law  for  the  government  of  the 
whole  nation,  calling  themselves,  in  the  docu 
ment,  "  We,  the  people  of  the  United  States." 
These  concurrent  majorities  —  the  great 
law-originating  power  of  the  Union,  the  uni 
versally  admitted  representative  of  the  national 
sovereignty  —  spoke  in  the  language  of  com 
mand  and  prohibition.  They  said  to  each 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  221 

State,  "  You  must  be  careful  to  establish  and 
maintain  republican  government  within  your 
confines  ;  you  shall  grant  no  title  of  nobility. 
If  you  fail  to  observe  this  law,  the  nation  will 
interpose  and  legislate  for  you.  You  shall  not 
coin  money,  nor  emit  bills  of  credit,  nor  collect 
duties  on  imports."  The  phrase  was  peremp 
tory  :  "  No  State  shall  "  do  any  of  those  things 
which  the  people  then  thought  it  expedient  to 
prohibit. 

Here  is  the  exercise  of  a  power  above  all 
the  States.  Who  was  it  said,  "  No  State  shall 
do  this  or  do  that  ?  "  First,  the  representa 
tives  of  the  people  of  the  whole  Union,  and, 
after  them,  the  representatives  of  the  people  of 
the  several  States,  by  whose  fiat  this  became 
law.  "  We,  the  people,"  said  it.  Could  not 
the  same  authority  have  circumscribed  State 
action  within  still  narrower  limits  ?  Yes  ;  and 
they  did  so.  They  said :  "  You  shall  not 
make  war  nor  peace,  nor  treaties,  nor  have  an 
army  or  navy  without  the  permission  of  the 
nation.  You  shall  not  have  a  post-office,  nor 
a  custom-house."  In  fact,  they  cut  off  from 
the  States,  one  by  one,  almost  every  power  or 
attribute  which  the  world  is  accustomed  to 
regard  as  a  badge  or  sign  of  sovereignty,  and 


222  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

left  them  in  possession  of  little  more  than  that 
municipal  power  which  the  world  is  equally 
accustomed  to  regard  as  the  characteristic  limit 
of  subordinate  governments.  It  is  obvious, 
then,  that  the  States  had  a  master.  How  does 
this  agree  with  the  theory  of  original,  inherent 
sovereignty  ? 

Still,  it  is  true  that  the  States  exercise  sov 
ereign  powers :  that  is,  they  make  and  exe 
cute  laws.  To  do  this  is  one  of  the  highest 
acts  of  sovereignty.  But  note,  that  it  is  one 
thing  to  exercise  sovereign  powers  and  another 
to  be  sovereign.  The  City  Council  makes  and 
executes  laws  within  its  little  circle  of  govern 
ment,  and  so  far  represents  a  fraction  of  the 
great  sovereignty  of  the  nation.  Yet  it  is  not 
a  sovereign,  except  on  a  small  scale,  in  that 
only  sense  in  which  we  may  call  a  State  a  sov 
ereign  of  larger  dimensions.  There  is  really 
no  more  inherent  and  primitive  sovereignty  in 
one  than  in  the  other.  In  regard  to  both  State 
and  City  Council,  —  and  going  still  higher,  to 
the  National  Government,  —  all  these  organ 
isms  are  but  representatives  of  sovereign  power ; 
the  actual  sovereignty  being  resident  only  in 
the  aggregate  people,  who  can  make  and  un 
make  each  and  all  of  them  at  their  pleasure. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

So,  whatever  sovereignty  there  is,  comes  by 
permission  or  appointment  of  the  people,  and 
must  conform  itself  to  the  conditions  of  that 
permission. 

This  is  the  limit  and  scope  of  State  Sov 
ereignty,  and,  whilst  it  is  preserved  within 
this  limit  and  faithfully  administered  by  loyal 
States,  it  will  be  found  to  be  all  the  State 
Sovereignty  that  is  necessary  to  render  Amer 
ican  liberty  forever  secure  against  disastrous 
assault.  Indeed,  I  can  conceive  nothing  more 
certain,  in  the  long  run,  to  break  down  demo 
cratic  government  and  overthrow  public  lib 
erty,  than  the  permanent  incorporation  of  this 
idea  of  original,  inherent  sovereignty  into  any 
section,  subdivision  or  fragment  of  the  nation, 
or  anywhere  but  in  the  aggregate  of  the  people. 

As  the  fact  of  sovereignty,  according  to  our 
republican  system  of  government,  is  exhibited 
in  the  making  and  executing  of  the  laws,  so 
our  allegiance,  which  is  its  correlative,  consists 
in  nothing  more  nor  less  than  in  faithful  obe 
dience  to  the  laws.  A  citizen  has  no  higher 
duty  —  I  mean  no  compulsory  higher  duty  — 
than  that.  Every  man  who  honestly  and  truly 
obeys  the  laws  does  all  that  our  scheme  of  gov 
ernment  demands  of  him  in  the  way  of  alle 
giance. 


224  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

When  a  Virginia  Senator,  just  at  the  date  of 
the  breaking  out  of  this  rebellion,  said,  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate,  "  I  owe  no  allegiance  to 
the  United  States ;  my  only  allegiance  is  due 
to  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  what  I  give  to 
the  Government  I  give  through  her,"  he  but 
uttered  the  words  of  that  sad  delusion  which 
has  spread  mourning  and  sorrow  around  every 
fireside  in  his  native  State.  If  he  really  meant 
what  these  words  would  seem  to  imply,  it  was 
that  he  owed  no  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the 
United  States,  except  so  far  as  Virginia  per 
mitted  him  to  obey  them  ;  and  that  his  State 
had  the  right,  in  the  exercise  of  her  sovereign 
will,  to  discharge  him  from  the  obligation  of 
obeying  these  laws. 

What  foundation  is  there  for  this  vainglori 
ous  boast,  "  I  owe  no  allegiance  to  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States  ?  " 

Does  not  that  Government  rightfully  make 
laws  for  the  whole  nation  ?  Are  not  these  laws 
"  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  ?  "  What  title 
above  this  —  nay,  as  high  as  this  —  has  any 
State  to  command  obedience  to  its  laws,  in 
opposition  to  those  of  the  nation  ?  The  "  land  " 
is  the  whole  country,  in  contradistinction  to  a 
State,  and  embraces  the  whole  round  of  States. 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  225 

"  The  supreme  law  of  the  land  "  is,  by  its  very 
terms,  as  it  is  by  its  nature,  the  law  of  the  only 
sovereign  ;  for  there  cannot  be  two  grades  of 
sovereigns.  The  people  of  "  the  land "  are, 
individually,  the  subjects  of  that  law  and  owe 
it  obedience.  Collectively,  they  are  the  makers 
of  that  law,  and  may  alter  and  amend  it  to  suit 
their  own  wants.  Their  obedience  to  this  law 
is  the  only  allegiance  possible  to  them.  Their 
sovereign  possesses  no  personality  or  visible 
existence  to  whom  an  act  of  homage,  allegi 
ance,  or  fealty  can  be  offered.  The  sovereign 
to  them  is  an  abstraction,  and  exists  simply  in 
the  law  which  rules  over  all.  Allegiance  is 
nothing  else  than  Obedience  to  that  law. 

The  same  kind  of  allegiance,  and  no  other, 
we  owe  to  the  laws  of  the  State  in  which  we 
live.  For  the  State  derives  its  right  to  make 
laws  to  bind  those  who  live  in  it  from  pre 
cisely  the  same  spurce  as  the  National  Gov 
ernment,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  They  have  agreed  that  the 
people  of  New  York  and  of  Virginia  may  exer 
cise  the  law-making  power  within  certain  limi 
tations  ;  outside  of  these  limitations,  they  have 
said  New  York,  and  Virginia  and  the  rest  shall 
not  make  laws.  They  have  said,  for  example, 
15 


226  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

"  Within  the  sphere  of  your  domestic  affairs, 
you  may  make  laws,  —  taking  care,  however, 
that,  within  that  sphere,  you  make  no  ex-post- 
facto  law,  nor  make  any  law  impairing  the 
obligation  of  contracts ;  for  these  things  we 
forbid.  Outside  of  your  domestic  affairs,  we 
deny  you  all  power  of  legislation  —  except 
that,  if  there  be  anything  we  have  not  specifi 
cally  forbidden  you  to  do,  that  you  may  do, 
until  we  otherwise  order.  Let  the  champions 
of  State  sovereignty  rack  their  brains  over  this 
point  as  long  as  they  may,  they  will  find  no 
escape  from  this  conclusion  —  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  as  an  aggregate  political 
body,  are  the  masters  of  the  whole  system  of 
government,  both  National  and  State,  and  law 
fully  may,  and  always  will,  distribute  power 
and  arrange  the  functions  of  both  National  and 
State  organizations  to  suit  their  own  views  of 
the  growth  and  necessities  of  the  nation.  Now, 
whatever  State  Sovereignty  is  compatible  with 
that  general  mastership  of  the  people,  the 
States  possess,  and  nothing  more. 

It  is  impossible,  it  strikes  me,  notwithstand 
ing  all  that  is  said  to  excite  jealousy  and  dis 
trust  of  this  popular  power  of  the  nation,  to 
conceive  a  safer  or  more  wholesome  depositary 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  227 

of  the  sovereignty  of  the  Union  than  this.  It 
can  have  no  motive  to  aggrandize  one  portion 
of  the  system  under  its  control  at  the  expense 
of  another.  There  is  no  natural  antagonism 
between  the  National  and  State  organizations, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  mutual  and  incessant  de 
pendence.  There  is  no  necessary  conflict  of 
interest ;  wherever  that  has  appeared,  it  has 
arisen  out  of  an  assumption,  on  the  part  of  the 
States,  of  prerogatives  that  were  not  in  har 
mony  with  the  common  welfare.  Every  man 
of  the  Nation  is  also  a  man  of  a  State  ;  and  it 
is  the  aggregate  of  the  men  of  the  nation  who 
form  and  construct  both.  It  would  seem  that 
nothing  could  be  devised  so  likely  to  keep  both 
in  harmony.  Certainly  nothing,  one  would 
think,  would  be  so  certain  to  render  perfect 
harmony  in  the  Union  hopeless,  as  the  inde 
pendent  sovereignty  which  is  claimed  in  oppo 
sition  to  this  theory. 

If  these  views  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  peo 
ple,  as  demonstrated  in  the  Constitution,  need 
further  development,  we  shall  see  them  more 
clearly  announced  in  the  provisions  made  for 
amendment. 

The  power  to  amend,  to  alter  or  modify,  is 
a  power  to  construct  and  establish.  I  know  of 


228  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

no  limitation  to  this  power.  Has  any  one  ever 
thought  of  raising  the  question  of  its  scope  and 
extent  ?  Would  it  not  be  regarded  as  a  very 
absurd  objection  to  a  proposed  amendment, 
that  the  people  of  the  United  States  had  no 
right  to  make  it  ?  I  take  it,  that  whatever 
amendment  is  adopted  in  accordance  with  the 
provisions  laid  down  in  the  Constitution  for 
making  amendments,  becomes  at  once  the 
supreme  law.  This  power  may  change,  one 
by  one,  or  all  together,  every  feature  of  the 
Constitution.  It  may  build  States  into  empires, 
or  dwarf  them  into  municipalities  ;  define  State 
rights,  abolish  slavery,  regulate  suffrage,  silence 
the  logic  of  secession,  and  dispose  of  the  thou 
sand  questions  that  touch  the  public  welfare, 
with  the  full  authority  of  a  sovereign  mandate. 
The  power  is  unbounded.  The  only,  but  the 
all-sufficient,  checks  upon  it  are  the  responsi 
bility  of  the  representative  to  his  constituents, 
and  the  vote  of  the  nation  in  the  act  of  ratifi 
cation. 

This  power  to  amend,  therefore,  may  be 
saijl  to  exhibit  the  highest  manifestation  of  the 
popular  sovereignty. 

Now,  let  us  see  where  it  is  lodged. 

We  shall  find  that  the  Constitution  so  ar- 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  229 

ranges  the  process  of  amendment  that  every 
proposition  shall  come  from  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  speaking  through 
the  representatives  of  the  whole  Union  ;  and 
shall  be  ratified  by  a  still  larger  majority  of 
the  people,  speaking  through  their  representa 
tives  in  the  several  States. 

1.  The  proposition  must  be  made  with  the 
consent  of  two  thirds  of  both  Houses  of  Con 
gress  ;    those   in   the   House  representing  two 
thirds  of  the  people  of  the  whole  Union  ;  those 
in  the  Senate  representing  two  thirds  of  the 
Senatorial   constituency,   which    may  or    may 
not  be,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  division, 
the  expression  of  two  thirds  of  the  States  ;  for 
Senators  of  the  same  State,  by  dividing,  may 
neutralize  the  vote  of  the  State.     To  this  mode 
of  originating  an  amendment  there  is  an  alter 
native   provision.      Two  thirds   of  the   States 
may,  by  their  Legislatures,  require  Congress 
to    call    a    National    Convention    to    propose 
amendments.    This  convention  is  a  single  body 
elected  by  the  qualified  voters  of  the  whole 
Union,  and  is,  in  the  strictest  sense,  a  repre 
sentation  of  the  whole  people. 

2.  When  the  amendment  is  thus  proposed 
and  sanctioned  by  the  people,  in  either  of  the 


230  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

orms  of  proceeding  above  described,  it  is  then 
to  be  submitted  to  a  second  ordeal  of  popular 
consent,  by  its  reference  to  the  Legislatures  of 
the  several  States  ;  or,  if  Congress  should  have 
reason  to  believe  that  State  Conventions,  ex- 
presslv  elected  by  the  people  of  each  State, 
would  more  accurately  represent  the  popular 
opinion,  the  Constitution  gives  it  power  to 
order  such  Conventions  to  be  held  and  the 
question  of  the  amendment  to  be  consigned  to 
them.  In  whichever  of  these  two  forms  the 
amendment  is  submitted  for  ratification,  it  re 
quires  that  the  people  of  three  fourths  of  the 
States  shall  thus  give  their  consent  to  make  it 
a  law.  When  that  majority  is  obtained,  then 
the  act  is  complete,  and  thenceforth  the  Gov 
ernment  moves  in  accordance  with  this  new 
command. 

In  this  process  of  amendment,  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  alteration  in  the  Constitution 
can  only  be  proposed  by  the  representatives 
of  the  nation,  assembled  either  in  Congress 
or  in  special  National  Convention  ;  that  it  is 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  represented 
per  capita,  from  equal  districts  over  the  whole 
nation,  who  possess  this  great  sovereign  pre 
rogative  of  initiating  a  new  arrangement  or 


MR.    AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  231 

alteration  of  the  fundamental  law  ;  that  the 
supreme  law  is  in  the  keeping  of  the  Union, 
and  that  the  Union  is  the  nation.  When  the 
amendment  is  thus  initiated,  I  wish  it  also  to 
be  noted,  that  it  is  the  people  of  the  States  who 
are  called  upon  to  express,  through  their  Legis 
latures,  or  —  if  these  be  not  deemed  by  Con 
gress  reliable  exponents  of  the  popular  opinion 
—  through  State  Conventions,  their  consent  to 
the  amendment,  by  the  concurrence  of  the  ma 
jority  of  the  voters  of  not  less  than  three  fourths 
of  the  States. 

This  is  the  machinery  provided,  by  the  found 
ers  of  the  Government,  for  the  exhibition  of  that 
sovereign  power  which  may  make  and  unmake 
every  fundamental  law  for  the  guidance  and 
control  of  every  National  and  State  institution 
within  the  Union.  When  that  power  once  is 
sues  its  mandate,  who  can  lawfully  disobey  it  ? 
Suppose  it  were  to  say  that  no  slavery  shall 
henceforth  exist  within  the  confines  of  the 
Union  ;  would  this  command  be  disputed  by 
any  State  in  the  circle  ?  If  it  should,  would 
the  courts  uphold  it  in  such  dispute  ?  These 
questions  are  easily  answered.  They  are  an 
swered  alreadv.  The  whole  people  understand 
them.  The  war  has  made  them  very  intelli- 


232  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

gible.  The  great  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  said,  "  We  must  be  done 
with  slavery/'  How  have  they  set  about  to 
make  that  saying  good  ?  They  propose  an 
amendment  of  the  Constitution.  Is  there  any 
inherent  sovereignty  in  any  State  of  this  Union 
which  can  say,  I  will  disobey  that  law  ? 

It  is  a  subject  of  curious  interest,  at  this 
time,  to  look  back  to  the  Convention  of  1787 
and  collect  from  the  proceedings  of  that  body 
the  notions  which  its  leading  men  entertained 
of  their  own  power,  in  conjunction  with  that 
of  the  people,  to  regulate  and  establish  the 
whole  scheme  of  the  Union.  There  were  some 
of  these  men  disposed  to  break  up  the  State 
system.  General  Hamilton  thought  the  States 
ought  to  be  reduced  to  mere  political  divisions. 
Some  even  thought  that  the  State  lines  might 
be  altered  so  as  to  equalize  their  several  terri 
tories.  Randolph,  Madison,  and  others  were 
very  emphatic  in  demanding  a  National  Gov 
ernment.  Patrick  Henry  would  not  accept  a 
seat,  to  which  he  had  been  appointed,  because 
he  feared  a  National  Government  as  hostile  to 
liberty,  —  a  sentiment  which  he  lived  to  retract. 
Some  were  vehement  in  insisting  upon  a  per 
petual  license  to  the  importation  of  African 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  233 

slaves,  whilst  Mason,  of  Virginia,  denounced 
not  only  the  trade  in  slaves,  but  slavery  itself, 
as  a  heinous  national  sin. 

What  I  specially  note,  as  pertinent  to  my 
subject,  in  these  incidents,  is,  that  on  all  sides 
it  seemed  to  be  conceded  that,  whatever  might 
be  the  result  of  their  work,  —  whether  it  should 
ultimately  limit  or  enlarge  State  authority ; 
whether  it  should  establish  a  nation  or  a  league ; 
consolidate  power  or  distribute  it,  —  whatever 
might  be  done,  the  product  would  be  an  en 
tirely  lawful  achievement,  and,  when  ratified, 
would  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  to  which 
all  must  yield  obedience.  There  is  everywhere 
apparent  in  these  proceedings,  the  conviction 
that  the  Convention  acted  with  implicit  faith 
in  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  as  the  foun 
tain  of  all  power,  and  as  altogether  sufficient 
to  ordain  and  establish  the  law  which  was  to 
regulate  both  the  National  and  State  govern 
ments. 

There  was  one  question  raised  in  these  de 
bates,  which  was  very  significant  in  reference 
to  this  subject  of  State  Sovereignty,  and  which 
is  noteworthy  now  from  the  singular  miscon 
ception  to  which  it  has  been  exposed. 

Mr.  Randolph,  at  an  early  day  of  the  ses- 


234  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

sion,  offered  fifteen  resolutions,  of  which  the 
sixth  proposed  to  confer  upon  the  National 
Government  a  power  "  to  call  forth  the  force 
of  the  Union  against  any  member  of  the  Union 
failing  to  fulfil  its  duty."  Mr.  Patterson,  also, 
at  a  later  period,  offered  a  proposition,  that 
"  if  any  State,  or  any  body  of  men  in  any  State, 
shall  oppose  or  prevent  the  carrying  into  exe 
cution  such  acts  or  treaties,  the  Federal  Exec 
utive  shall  be  authorized  to  call  forth  the  power 
of  the  confederated  States,  or  so  much  thereof 
as  may  be  necessary  to  compel  an  obedience 
to  such  acts,"  &c.  These  propositions  met  a 
prompt  dissent  from  Hamilton,  Madison,  Ma 
son,  and  others.  They  argued  against  the 
propriety  or  expediency  of  incorporating  into 
the  Constitution  the  idea  of,  what  they  called, 
coercing  a  State. 

Hamilton  said :  "  How  can  this  force  be 
exerted  on  the  States?  It  is  impossible.  It 
amounts  to  war  between  the  parties.  Foreign 
powers  will  interpose,  confusion  will  increase, 
and  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  will  ensue." 

He  regarded  the  making  of  war  on  a  State 
as  an  acknowledgment  of  it  as  a  belligerent, 
which  would  allow  it  to  claim  the  right  to 
form  foreign  alliances.  This  acknowledgment, 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  235 

he  also  perceived,  would  create  confusion  in 
the  relations  of  the  people  to  the  Government, 
as  it  would  enable  the  State  to  assume  upon 
itself  the  responsibility  of  the  citizen's  disobe 
dience  to  the  national  law ;  and,  what  is  still 
more  worthy  of  note  at  this  time,  he  saw  in 
this  admission  of  a  belligerent  right  —  what  we 
may  now  consider  prophetic  —  imminent  dan 
ger  to  the  Union. 

Madison  argued  to  the  same  effect.  Speak 
ing  of  the  predominant  theory  of  the  Constitu 
tion  as  then  proposed,  "  he  called,"  says  the 
report,  "for  a  single  instance  in  which  the 
General  Government  was  not  to  operate  on 
the  people  individually.  The  practicability  of 
making  laws,"  he  added,  "  with  coercive  sanc 
tions  for  the  States,  as  political  bodies,  has  been 
exploded  on  all  hands." 

Mason,  in  a  previous  stage  of  the  debate, 
as  we  read  in  the  notes  of  the  Convention, 
"argued  very  cogently,  that  punishment  could 
not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  executed  on  the 
States  collectively,  and,  therefore,  such  a  govern 
ment  was  necessary  as  could  directly  operate  on 
individuals,  and  would  punish  those  only  whose 
guilt  required  it." 

It  is  strange  that  these  opinions  of  Hamil- 


236  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

ton,  Madison,  and  Mason  should  be  quoted  for 
the  double  purpose,  First,  of  showing  that  they 
treated  the  State  as  a  sovereign  power ;  and 
Second,  that,  being  sovereign,  it  was  their 
opinion  that  it  could  not,  for  that  reason,  be 
coerced,  or  —  as  the  term  was  used  to  signify 
—  be  subjected  to  military  attack  and  punish 
ment  by  the  Government.  Their  argument 
was  the  very  reverse  of  this.  It  said :  "  Do 
not  recognize,  in  the  constitution  you  are  con 
structing,  any  such  character  in  a  State  as 
might  authorize  the  National  Government  to 
make  war  upon  it,  as  a  sovereign  power  ;  if 
you  do  so,  it  will  follow  that  the  State  may 
assert  the  right  of  a  lawful  belligerent ;  shield 
its  citizens  from  their  responsibility  to  you,  by 
claiming  their  allegiance  to  itself;  and  taking 
advantage  of  the  war,  as  putting  an  end  to 
all  treaties  and  compacts,  seize  the  opportunity 
to  retire  from  the  Union.  To  obviate  such  a 
mischievous  relation  between  the  States  and 
the  Union,  be  careful  to  avoid  any  recognition 
of  a  State  as  a  subject  of  national  hostility, 
and  construct  such  a  government  as  shall  have 
power — in  the  language  of  Mason  —  cto  oper 
ate  directly  on  individuals,  and  to  punish  those 
only  whose  guilt  required  it.' 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  237 

Hamilton,  Madison,  and  Mason  evidently 
thought  there  should  be  no  more  recognition  of 
a  power  or  a  necessity  to  coerce  a  State  than  to 
coerce  a  county  or  a  city.  That,  on  the  occur 
rence  of  a  rebellion,  it  should  be  the  province 
of  the  Government  to  act  only  against  those, 
individually,  who  might  be  resisting,  or  aiding 
others  in  resisting,  the  due  and  orderly  execu 
tion  of  the  laws,  and  by  no  means  to  allow  any 
delinquent  to  shield  himself  from  punishment 
by  pleading  that  it  was  his  duty  to  obey  the 
laws  of  his  State  in  preference  to  those  of  the 
nation." 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  any  one 
should  argue  that  a  State  could  not  lawfully 
be  coerced  because  it  is  a  sovereign  power. 
The  logical  conclusion  runs  in  the  opposite 
direction.  The  only  sound  reason  that  could 
be  given  for  arraying  an  army  against  a  State 
would  be,  that  the  State  ivas  a  sovereign,  and 
entitled  to  be  dealt  with  as  only  sovereign 
powers  are  dealt  with,  when  argument  fails  to 
persuade ;  for,  it  is  only  sovereign  States  with 
which  nations  are  accustomed  to  make  war. 
When  States  not  sovereign  transgress,  redress 
is  sought,  not  in  war  with  the  subordinate 
authority,  but  in  the  punishment  of  the  indi- 


238  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

vidual  who  obeys  its  behests  to  the  detriment 
of  the  nation. 

v/  If  the  several  States  were  what  this  ultra 
State-rights  doctrine  asserts,  sovereign  commu 
nities,  in  the  sense  claimed  for  them,  we  have 
abundant  reason,  in  the  dreadful  teachings  of 
the  last  four  years,  to  say  that,  but  for  the  sig 
nal  and  total  prostration  of  that  theory  in  the 
catastrophe  of  the  rebellion,  the  members  of 
this  Union  would  have  been  destined  to  quick 
disintegration  and  perpetual  war.  The  resist 
ance  against  this  idea  of  coercion,  therefore,  by 
the  great  leaders  of  the  Convention,  supplies 
another  proof,  if  more  proof  were  wanting,  of 
their  wise  refusal  to  assign  to  the  States  any 
higher  attribute  of  sovereignty  than  that  qual 
ified  and  restricted  sovereignty  which  I  have 
endeavored  to  describe  in  this  Letter. 


LETTER   XL 

PEACE. 

JULY,  1865. 

I  WRITE  a  short  Letter  by  way  of  conclu 
sion.  The  great  events  which  followed  so  rap 
idly  upon  the  date  of  my  last,  have  brought 
the  task  I  have  undertaken  to  an  end.  The 
collapse  of  the  rebellion,  in  the  surrender  of 
its  armies  and  the  submission  of  its  leaders, 
leaves  me  but  little  motive  to  prolong  the  dis 
cussions  presented  in  these  Letters. 

It  was  my  purpose  to  say  something  on  that 
long-vexed  question  of  Slavery,  which  has  .so 
earnestly  and  so  diversely  stirred  the  feelings 
of  both  North  and  South.  But  the  interest 
in  that  topic  is  suddenly  and  most  happily 
sunk  in  the  fate  of  the  rebellion.  Slavery  v 
has  performed  its  mission  in  the  world,  and  is 
soon  to  be  reckoned  amongst  the  spent  forces 
that  have  disturbed  or  assisted  the  progress  of 
civilization.  It  is  about  to  pass,  with  all  its 
imputed  merits  and  demerits,  with  its  wrongs, 


240  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

its  crimes,  its  false  pretences,  its  transient  ser 
vice  and  whatever  modicum  of  good  of  which 
it  was  capable,  into  the  great  storehouse  of 
things  finished  upon  earth,  and  to  be  henceforth 
committed  to  the  accusing  record  of  history. 

I  regret  to  find  that  we  have  already  begun 
to  wrangle  about  the  final  disposition  of  the 
debris  which  the  demolition  of  that  institution 
has  left  in  the  political  field.  We  are  troubling 
ourselves  with  vain  disputes  touching  equality 
of  races,  distinctions  of  complexion,  and  settle 
ment  of  suffrage.  The  Providence  that  has 
conducted  slavery  up  to  the  day  of  its  extinc 
tion,  I  think,  we  may  safely  trust  with  the  final 
adjustment  of  the  consequences.  To  me,  it 
seems  to  be  a  corollary  from  the  great  fiat  of 
that  Extinction,  that  the  emancipated  slave  shall 
rise,  in  proper  and  due  progress  of  elevation, 
from  his  debasement,  up  to  the  enjoyment  of 
every  faculty  and  every  right  he  may  prove 
himself  able  to  exercise ;  and  that  the  only  im 
pediment  which  may  retard  that  progress  will 
be  found  in  the  attempt  to  coerce  or  direct  it, 
by  the  interposition  of  the  power  of  the  Na 
tional  government.  Nothing,  it  strikes  me, 
can  be  more  appropriate,  more  certain,  or  bet 
ter  adapted  to  insure  the  success  of  his  advance- 


MR.   AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  241 

ment,  than  the  authority  that  belongs  to,  and 
is  especially  cherished  by,  the  State  govern 
ments,  for  the  regulation  of  their  domestic 
policy.  Let  them  pursue  their  own  course, 
and  I  predict  that  not  another  decade  will 
elapse  before  every  State  in  the  Union  will 
find  themselves  compelled,  by  the  strongest 
inducements  that  govern  human  policy,  to 
use  all  the  means  at  their  command  to  make 
the  negro  a  useful  and  contented  citizen. 

I  do  not  propose  to  give  my  reasons  here 
for  this  prophecy,  but  I  will  merely  invite  your 
reflection  to  the  fact,  that  four  millions  of  peo 
ple  are  now  added  to  a  scarcely  equal  number 
of  population  who  heretofore  dominated  in  the 
South;  and  that  the  aggregate  eight  millions 
are  hereafter  to  constitute  the  body  politic  of  the 
same  region.  Does  our  past  experience  show  l 
that  republican  government  is  possible,  with 
one  half  of  the  people  permanently  deprived 
by  the  other  half  of  equal  political  privileges  ? 
Reflect  upon  this  question,  and  call  to  your  aid 
the  history  of  the  progress  of  political  power  and 
especially  of  the  right  of  suffrage,  as  these  have 
been  developed  in  our  growth,  and  I  think  you 
will  find  no  hesitation  in  making  an  answer. 
Again,  I  would  suggest  for  your  meditation,  an 

16 


242  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

inquiry  into  the  character  of  this  emancipated 
population,  and  ask  you  to  notice  that  very 
prominent  fact  which  every  Southern  man  un 
derstands,  —  namely,  that  the  negro  is  by  na 
ture  the  most  amiable,  imitative,  and  pliable  of 
all  human  beings;  and  that,  with  kind  treat 
ment  and  friendly  training,  he  may  be  made  the 
most  effective  and  ever  ready  ally,  in  all  polit 
ical  enterprise,  of  that  class  of  society  which,  in 
his  state  of  slavery,  exercised  mastership  over 
him.  In  the  consideration  of  these  qualities  of 
this  docile  race,  and  these  opportunities  and  in 
ducements  to  create  an  influence  over  it,  we 
may  ground  our  belief  in  the  certainty  of  the 
result  I  have  predicted. 

And,  lastly,  I  invite  you  to  weigh  the  value  of 
this  remark,  —  that  when  the  Southern  repre 
sentation  in  the  National  Legislature  is  doubled, 
(as  it  will  be  by  the  access  of  this  population,) 
it  is  against  every  theory  sustained  by  our  polit 
ical  experience,  to  assume  that  the  nation  will 
not  demand  the  most  complete  equality  of  polit 
ical  right  for  that  mass  which  confers  this  addi 
tional  power,  and  claim  for  itself  the  benefit  of 
the  kindly  sentiment  and  loyal  attachment  to  the 
Union,  which  the  conferring  of  this  boon  must 
inspire  in  the  enfranchised  population  to  whom 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  243 

it  is  given.     The  gratitude  and  fidelity  of  these  « 
people,   thus  earned  by  the  government,   the 
loyal  citizens  of  every  State  will  insist  upon 
being  brought  to  the  support  of  the  country, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  vote. 

Referring  to  the  obvious  considerations  which  '- 
these  views  suggest,  and  which  I  offer  without 
further  discussion,  I  would,  if  I  had  any  influ 
ence  with  Southern  statesmen,  advise  them,  of 
their  own  motion,  to  take  time  by  the  forelock, 
and  provide  in  their  several  Constitutions  that 
every  colored  man  who  had  the  qualification  of 
residence,  and  who  had  attained  to  an  intellec 
tual  culture  that  enabled  him  to  read  his  Bible, 
should  be  invested  with  the  right  of  suffrage. 
Such  a  provision  would  disarm  all  serious  oppo- 
sition  to  the  prompt  restoration  of  the  States, 
lately  in  rebellion,  to  all  their  former  privileges, 
and  would  disband  the  political  parties  which 
have  attempted  an  organization  to  confer  this 
right  upon  the  lately  liberated  slaves. 

Touching  this  question  of  Restoration,  it  is 
pleasant  to  note  how  effectively  that  charitable 
purpose  is  already  aided  by  the  prompt  support 
of  the  many  old  friends  in  the  South  we  have 
known  in  the  past,  whose  stanch  loyalty,  though 
long  repressed,  has  never  been  extinguished  in 


244  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

the  dreadful  trials  of  the  time.  I  have  never 
abated  my  confidence  in  their  coming  to  the 
post  of  duty  when  the  day  of  their  service  should 
arrive.  They  have  come  forth  at  the  appointed 
time,  and  are  fulfilling  the  predictions  we  have 
made  for  them.  But  we  have  to  rejoice,  also, 
that  another  auxiliary  has  come  with  them  into 
this  field  of  duty,  which  the  country  did  not  ex 
pect,  at  least  so  soon.  Side  by  side  with  the  most 
loyal,  and  even  in  eager  competition  with  them, 
have  come  many  of  those  who  had  plunged  into 
the  melee  of  civil  war  and  either  marshalled  its 
forces  in  the  field  or  led  its  counsels  in  debate. 
This  marvel  has  appeared  in  conspicuous  activ 
ity,  as  if  to  contradict  the  ordinary  experience  of 
the  world  as  gathered  from  all  other  civil  com 
motions,  and  to  furnish  one  more  to  the  many 
incidents  that  illustrate  that  anomalous  char 
acter  of  our  people,  which  makes  them  incom 
prehensible  to  those  who  do  not  live  amongst 
them,  and  altogether  inexplicable  in  the  phi 
losophy  of  those  who  measure  men  and  States 
by  the  standard  of  Old  -World  opinions. 

The  submission  of  the  South  was,  to  the 
country,  a  sudden  and  most  happy  surprise. 
It  has  been  too  prompt  and  too  general  to  al 
low  any  one  to  doubt  its  sincerity.  Whether 


MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS.  245 

under  the  influence  of  a  mistaken  estimate  of 
political  right,  or  of  the  illusion  of  some  great 
wrong  and  the  consequent  duty  of  resistance, 
or  whether  impelled  by  thoughtless  passion,  or 
swayed  by  the  mere  contagion  of  a  popular 
frenzy,  the  men  of  the  South  have  fought  for 
their  cause,  and  their  whole  population  have 
endured  its  privations  and  its  pains,  with  a 
bravery  and  a  heroism,  of  which,  in  spite  of  our 
anger  and  the  sacrifices  they  have  forced  upon 
us,  we  are  secretly  and  personally  proud,  as 
brothers  of  the  same  lineage  and  citizens  of  the 
same  country.  It  will  hereafter  be  a  point  of 
doubtful  determination  in  the»judgment  of  his 
tory,  which  is  most  worthy  of  admiration  in 
this  war,  —  the  eager,  and,  shall  I  not  say,  the 
graceful  submission  of  the  conquered,  as  exhib 
ited  in  the  frank  confessions  of  the  host  that  are 
now  appealing  to  the  President  for  amnesty,  or 
the  extraordinary  clemency  of  the  Government 
in  dealing  with  its  erring  children. 

I  notice  these  characteristics  of  the  ending  of 
the  strife,  as  signs  of  a  happy  future,  and  as  per 
suasions,  to  both  sides,  in  favor  of  perseverance 
in  that  auspicious  course  of  conciliation  and  wise 
submission  which  will  most  certainly  bring  the 
occurrence,  the  achievements,  and  the  results 


246  MR.  AMBROSE'S  LETTERS. 

of  this  gigantic  conflict  of  opinion  and  arms  to 
be  accounted,  in  our  future  history,  as  the  great 
purifier  and  renovator  of  our  Republican  Em 
pire,  and  as  the  notation  of  the  beginning  of  a 
national  strength  and  influence,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  which  no  people  have  ever  before 
attained. 

At  this  point  I  finish  my  allotted  work.  If 
these  Letters  possess  any  interest  to  commend 
their  perusal,  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  learn  that 
they  have  found  a  special  facility  of  access  to 
those  calmer  minds  in  the  South,  whom  the  en 
grossments  of  the  rebellion  and  the  exaspera 
tion  of  conflict  have  not  so  seriously  disturbed, 
as  to  forbid  a  sober  and  honest  reconsideration 
of  the  few  but  very  important  topics  I  have 
brought  into  review  as  the  sources  of  that  ter- 

O 

rible  conflict  from  which  the  country  has  just 
emerged. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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0  .107-1  7  4 


REC'DLD  MAY  9 


